ADDRESSES 



DEATH or HOI. JACOB COLLAMER, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



TUVRSDAV, DECEMBER 14, tS65. 






WASHINGTON: 
GOVERNMENT I' R I N T I N G OFFICE. 



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(Bi „ gg^BSSSSSgggggSSggggggiggSSSSgBSgiil 



ADDRESSES 

ON THE 

DEATH OF HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
Thursday, December 14, 1865. 



Address of Mr. Foot, of Vermont. 

Mr. Pkesident: I rise to ask the Senate to suspend, 
for this day, its dehberations upon pubhc aifairs, that 
we may oifer fitting and appropriate tribute to the 
character and the memory of one who has long been 
associated with us in the national councils, but who is 
with us now no more. Since our assembling here at 
this present session, we have all had occasion to re- 
mark — none of us can have failed to remark — the 
absence of one of our number; one whom we have long 
been accustomed to meet and to hold counsel with in 
these halls. An elder brother, who has long mingled 
with us in our deliberations here; a wise and discreet 
statesman; a learned and judicious counsellor; a pure 
patriot; a just and an upright man, has been removed 
from among us by the hand of death. A venerable 
form, long familiar to our sight, has been taken away 
out of our presence. I bring no new message to this 



l)()(ly — for it lias already Ijceii heralded throughout the 
eountry — yet none the less sad, in making the formal 
announcement to the Senate of the death of my late 
colleague, Hon. Jacob Collamer. It is eminently tit 
and l)ecoming, Mr. President, as it is also in accordance 
\\ ith an appn^ved and sacred custom, that we pause for 
an hour in the ordinary routine of our (hiily labors, that 
we may consecrate that hour to the virtues and the 
memory of a deceased and lamented associate, who has 
shared so long and so largely in our regards and in the 
pul)lic confidence, for his mature wisdom and for his 
great moral excellence. 

"Your colleague, Judge Collamer, is dead!" was the 
startling telegraphic message I received at my home 
about five weeks ago. He expired at his residence in 
AYoodstock, Vermont, on the evening of the 9th of 
November past, after a Inief illness of little more than 
a single week — at his own home, in the midst of his 
own affectionate and devoted household; in the full 
exercise of his intellectual faculties; with an abiding 
and unshaken faith in the Christian religion; and in the 
cherished hope of a blissful immortality. 

But three \\eeks Ijefore his decease he visited Mont- 
pelier, the capital of the State, some fifty miles distant 
from his residence, to attend the funeral services of a 
younger and favorite In'other. Having paid the last sad 
offices of respect and affection to a brother's memory, 
he returned to his own home; but, alas! only to lay 
himself down so soon to die. By this dispensation, so 
sudden and so sad, the Senate of the United States has 
lost one of the oldest, most experienced, and most 



i- 



^^UBBaHaHbUMM 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 



trusted of its members; the country, one of the ablest 
and purest of its statesmen; society, and the church of 
which he was a member, one of their worthiest and 
brightest exemplars; my own State, her most eminent 
citizen; and this day there is mourning through all her 
borders. 

Jacob Collamer was born in Troy, in the State of 
New York, the 8th day of January, A. D. 1791, and was, 
therefore, at the time of his decease, in the seventy-fifth 
year of his age, and, in advancement of years, was the 
senior member of this body. In early childhood he 
was removed, with his father's family, to Burlington, 
Vermont. There his early life was spent; there he 
was educated; there his academic years were passed. 
He entered the University of Vermont at the age of 
fifteen, where he graduated in 1810 with credit and 
commendation for good conduct and scholarship, thus 
giving early promise and hope to his friends of future 
eminence and usefulness. This promise and these 
hopes were not doomed to disappointment. 

Immediately upon the conclusion of his collegiate 
course, he entered the law office of the late Judge Aldis, 
of St. Albans, then an eminent and leading lawyer at the 
bar in the State. Having passed through the usual pre- 
paratory course of legal studies, he was admitted to the 
bar in 1813, and entered at once upon his professional 
career. After remaining a few months at St. Albans, 
and thence stopping for a year or two in the town of 
Randolph, he finally settled at Royalton, in the county 
of Windsor, where he resided during the whole period 
of his active professional career, and until he removed 



to Woodstock, in the same county, in 1 836, where he 
continued until the time of his death. Here his ad- 
vancement in professional business and reputation was 
alike rapid and gratifying, and soon placed him in the 
front ranks of the leading men of his time at the bar. 
Forensic laurels, fresh and fair, gathered thick and fast 
upon his youthful brow, and he became at once the 
compeer, as he was the contemporary, of Prentiss and 
Phelps, and Royce and Bates ; of Van Ness and Uphani ; 
of Skinner, and Hall, and Everett; and early took rank 
even with the senior and more advanced champions of 
the i)rofession, like Daniel Chipman, and David Ed- 
mond, and Chauncey Langdon, and Horatio Seymour, 
and Charles K. Williams, and Dudley Chase, and Jona- 
than H. Hubbard, and Charles Marsh, and William C. 
Bradley, wlio had long held supremacy at the bar in our 
State. It was in a school of practice like this, it was in 
contact and collision with minds like these, that his own 
powers were cpiickened and invigorated, and in which he 
was early trained and disciplined to habits of close appli- 
cation and study, and which became the fixed habit of 
his life, and was, indeed, one of the chief elements of his 
success, and which enabled him to reach and to maintain 
the post of eminence and distinction, accorded to him 
by the popular judgment, in the front ranks of the legal 
profession. 

During the period of his active professional practice, 
although his time and attention were chiefly engrossed 
in his professional duties, yet, besides holding for several 
years the local offices of Register of Probate and of 
State's attorney for the county of Windsor, he was at 

m y 



four different times elected by the people of Royalton 
to the popular branch of the State legislature. He 
served through these several sessions, devoting himself, 
with his accustomed vigilance and fidelity, to the in- 
terests of his constituents and of the State, and took a 
prominent and influential part in the debates and the 
business of the body of which he was a member. 

In January, A. D. 1836, and while then a judge upon 
the bench, he was a delegate from his town to the con- 
stitutional convention then holden at Montpelier, to 
consider and to act upon certain proposed amendments 
to the State constitution, the most important of which 
was a proposition to abolish the old "gubernatorial 
council," so called, and in its stead to constitute a legis- 
lative branch having co-ordinate powers with the House 
of Representatives, ■ to be called the " Senate." This 
proposition was vigorously opposed in the convention, and 
brought out a protracted and perhaps the ablest parlia- 
mentary discussion ever had in the State upon any 
single question. The convention contained an unusual 
number of the leading and foremost men of the State. 
Judge CoLLAMER led the debate in the afiirmative of 
the question. The proposition was carried, and I feel 
myself authorized to say, mainly through his influence. 

In 1833, and after a successful and even brilhant 
career at the bar of just twenty years, he was placed, 
by vote of the legislature, upon the bench of the su- 
preme court of the State, a position for which he pos- 
sessed peculiar and pre-eminent qualifications, and which 
he held by successive elections nine years, and until he 
was returned by the people of his congressional district 



lai* 



to the national House of Representatives. As a jviflgc 
ii])()n the bench, he added lustre to the reputation lie 
had already acquired as a lawyer at the bar. He pos- 
sf^ssed intellectual and moral qualities most essential 
and requisite to the best discharge of the duties of a 
higli judicial magistracy — a clear and discriminating 
mind, an impartial judgment, strong practical good 
sense, a prt)found and instinctive sense of right and 
wrong, patience of investigation, an inflexil)le integrity, 
and a sincere and earnest desire to reach a just and 
correct conclusion. He held the scales of justice, 
therefore, with a firm and even hand. All these quali- 
ties were brought into practical ap})lication, and were 
beautifully exenn)lified throughout his whole judicial 
career; and when he retired from the bench he laid 
aside the judicial ermine untarnished, and "without 
spot or wrinkle or any such thing." 

From the bench he was transferred l)y the voice of 
the i)eople of his district to the United States House of 
Representatives, where he took his seat in 1843, suc- 
ceeding Horace Everett, long a distinguished member 
of that body. By successive elections, he continued an 
active and useful member of the House, though most of 
the time in a small political minority, until March, 1849, 
when he was called to the cabinet of President Taylor, 
as one of his confidential and constitutional advisers, 
and placed at the head of the General Post Office De- 
partment. Under his judicious and energetic adminis- 
tration the vast and complicated machinery of that 
Department was brought into system and order and 
efficiency. He held this position until the death of 



President Taylor, in July, 1850, when, with all his 
associates in the cabinet, of whom the distinguished 
senator from Maryland, [Mr. Johnson,] now present, 
was one, he resigned his place, and returned, a private 
citizen, to his home in Vermont. 

He was not long permitted, however, to remain in the 
quietude of private life. The people of his State still 
demanded his services in a j)ublic capacity, and in the 
following October he was chosen, by the legislature. Pre- 
siding Judge of the court in the judicial circuit in which 
he resided. He held this office through four years by 
successive legislative elections, discharging its duties 
with "all diligence and fidelity," and to the entire popu- 
lar acceptance and approval, when in October, 1854, he 
was elected to the Senate of the United States, and he 
took his seat as a member of this body the first Mon- 
day of December, 1855. He was re-elected to his seat 
here in 1860 with an almost unprecedented degree of 
unanimity. He has been with us and of us just ten 
years. His course through all this decade, embracing, 
as it does, perhaps, the most important period in the 
history of the Republic, is familiar to us all — it is 
familiar to all the country. During this period, and on 
this forum, where grave questions of state; where 
questions of j^eace and war; where questions of foreign 
and domestic policy ; where questions of trade and com- 
merce; questions of finance and revenue and taxation; 
here where every variety of question pertaining to gov- 
ernmental administration is presented for consideration, 
for discussion, and for final determination — here in this 
forum, he has won for himself a national reputation, an 



honorable and an enduring name as a learned and al)le 
senator; as a wise and discreet counsellor; as a judicious 
and upright legislator; in short, as a Christian states- 
man — and a Christian statesman, it has l>cen well and 
truly said, is the glory of his country — who has borne 
himself erect and above reproach through all this career, 
and kept himself "unspotted from the world." By the 
very constitution of his nature he revolted at every 
form and species of fraud and corruption, or of wrong 
and injustice. No man ever ventured to approach him 
with the offer of a price for his honor. Jobbers in 
iniquity came not into his presence. Purity of motive 
and integrity of purpose, unsullied and unassailed, were 
alike the law and the rule of his life, in public or in 
private action. All of us who have known him longest 
and known him l:)est will, with one accord, concede to 
him the possession, in an eminent degree, of what 
Cicero commends as the boni senatoris prudentia — the 
"wisdom of a good senator." 

It is no less our duty, Mr. President, than it is our 
grateful privilege, in the midst of this sorrow, in this 
high place, and in the presence of the American peo- 
ple — if I may borrow the language of another on a like 
occasion — to pay the tribute of our recognition of the 
national loss in the removal of those to whom we have 
been accustomed to look, especially in times of doubt 
and difficulty, for direction and for counsel. Such a loss 
is the more deeply felt, occurring at a period like the 
present, when questions novel and of paramount im- 
portance, growing out of a new and changed condition 
of public affairs, are to he considered and determined — 



questions vital to the best interests of the country, and 
involving the highest welfare, and even the very in- 
tegrity and faith of the government. The national 
heart has been laden with mourning and grief at the 
loss of many gallant and noble and patriotic sons of the 
Republic — numbering in its list of the mighty dead the 
chosen Chief Magistrate of your country — during this 
passing year now drawing to its close, to whom we 
were all looking for counsel and for guidance in these 
times of perplexity and trial. In the midst of these 
great bereavements we have only to bow in humble 
submission to the will of Him who chastiseth "not 
willingly," and who "doeth all things well." It is only 
left to us to cherish the memories of the good and 
great who have been taken from us; to imbibe the spirit 
of their teachings; and to follow on, so far forth as we 
may do it, in the light of their examples. 

Like most of the distinguished men of our time, 
and especially of our country; like most of those who 
have risen to the high places of power and trust; like 
most of the men who stand at the head of affairs in 
the various departments of life, whether political, pro- 
fessional, literary, commercial, or other pursuit; like 
most of the men who in our day and country have 
made their impress upon society, and who have written 
their own history upon the times in which they lived — 
like these men, Jacob Collamer was emphatically 
the author and the arbiter of his own fortunes. He 
owed nothing at all to the factitious aids or the ac- 
cidental circumstances of birth or fortune or family 
patronage. Under God he made his own fame and 



his own fortunes. With his own hands he cleared the 
rugged pathway wliich led him up to the entrance d(jor 
of the temple of honor and renown. He made his own 
good name, and made it known and honorable among 
men. With the advantage of a gifted mind, and with 
a resolute purpose to fulfil the great end of his being — 
the service of God and his country — by application and 
industry, by energy and perseverance, and an honest 
and an honorable life of well-doing, he formed his own 
character and won his own distinction, and left it as a 
rich inheritance to his children, and as an example to 
those who shall come up after him. 

Other and like examples abound through all our his- 
tory. So did Daniel Webster, in whom the son of an 
hund)le Salisbury farmer among the granite hills of 
New Hampshire becomes in after years, and by popular 
appellation, the "gi'eat expounder of the American Con- 
stitution;" the great American senator; the great A?ner- 
ican statesman, who stands, by the common recognition 
of mankind, as the intellectual monarch of his age. So 
did Abraham Lincoln — darum nomen — the poor Ken- 
tucky boy; the martyr President, who, under God, 
had saved a country and redeemed a race; the martyr 
President, who having saved his country from the 
great rebellion of all history, and redeemed a race 
from the bondage of centuries, falling by the assassin 
hand of treason, went down to the grave amid a 
nation's tears, and amid the requiem of a nation's 
wailing, yet bearing with him to the tomb, more of the 
world's affections, more of its sympathies, and more of 
its honors too, than were ever accorded to other man. 



or prince, or potentate of earth; and whose highest 
eiilogium is spoken in the universal lamentation. And 
so — I beg pardon, if in the least I offend against the 
proprieties of this occasion, or of this presence — so 
did Andrew Johnson, the humble mechanic from the 
mountains of North Carolina, who now, by the will of 
the American people, and by a providential dispensa- 
tion, wields the power and challenges the homage of 
the First Magistrate of the nation, and on whose will 
or word to-day, more than of other living man, hang 
the destinies of this American Republic. These are 
great examples. These are illustrious examples. Our 
history is full of them. They are as beacon-lights along 
the dim and crowded pathway of human life. They 
are for instruction, for guidance, for encouragement, for 
inspiration to the rising and the coming generations of 
American youth. 

"The fame which a man wins for himself is best; 
That he may call his own." 

Jacob Collamer was endowed with a rare combina- 
tion of intellectual and moral qualities of a high order; 
a capacious mind, at once active, clear, and discrimina- 
ting — a mind, too, in which the analytic powers and the 
reflective faculties were largely developed; and he was 
also gifted with a retentive memory. He was capa- 
ble of fixed and continuous application of his mind to 
the examination and analysis of whatever question he 
took in hand. These faculties were all sharpened and 
strengthened by varied reading and acquirement, and 
by hal^its of careful study and reflection. He possessed, 
in a remarkable degree, the power of condensation, and 



of arranging the various points or propositions involved 
in any subject under discussion, in the most clear and 
logical order, and which enabled him to present them 
with great force and perspicuity to the minds of others. 
He always secured respectful attention and deference 
to his opinions, whether in pul)lic debate or in private 
discussion, for the clearness and force with which he 
presented his views. He often enforced or illustrated 
an idea or proposition l)y the timely introduction of 
some apt and racy and often amusing anecdote. 

If he was not always eloquent, he was always in- 
structive. If he was not an orator in its ordinary ac- 
ceptation, he was more and better than a mere orator. 
He was a reasoner — a clear and logical reasoner. He 
was an excellent talker — an excellent public as well as 
private or social talker. He had the faculty of making 
himself understood, and consequently of making his 
sul)ject understood. He addressed himself to the rea- 
son and the understanding, rather than to the impulses 
or the fancies of men. It was his aim and his effort 
to convince the judgment by force of argument, rather 
than to move the passions by the appeals of eloquence, 
or to please the fancy by the beauties of rhetoric. If 
he had not the highest order of what, in popular phrase, 
is called genius, he had more solid comrnon sense than 
any man of genius, and was master of its practical use. 

A thoughtful and conscientious man, as he was, he 
spoke always and only from the convictions of his own 
judgment. His opinions, especially upon grave and im- 
portant questions, were not hastily formed nor incon- 
siderately expressed, but only after the most careful and 



mature reflection. Hence his opinions always com- 
manded great respect and deference, and carried with 
them a corresponding weight and influence. His 
opinions, especially upon legal and constitutional ques- 
tions, or upon questions of international law, were 
always received with profound deference and regard. 
His intelligent and independent judgment, his strong, 
practical good sense, and his mibending integrity of 
purpose, imparted to all his opinions uncommon weight 
and value. 

His whole life, public and professional, whether at 
the bar or upon the bench, whether in a high executive 
department or in the halls of legislation, has been 
assiduously devoted to the cause of truth and justice. 
Few public men have left a more excellent or a more 
honorable record. 

With his high intellectual endowments were happily 
blended the kindlier affections of the heart; and to all 
these were superadded the purer and holier graces of a 
Christian faith and of a consistent Christian life. In 
1825 he made public profession of his faith in the 
Gospel of Christ, and united with the Congregational 
church in Royalton, then the place of his residence. 
Through all these forty years, his life, in all its vaned 
modes, no less in the public than in the private walks 
of society; no less in the national councils than in the 
social and domestic circle; furnishes a practical and 
beautiful illustration of the beneficent influence and 
power of the religion he professed. 

The loss of such a man is, indeed, a loss to the nation ; 
it is a loss to the State; it is a loss to society. But we 



have only to know tliat it is God's doing, and "be still." 
This bereavement I hardly need to say, Mr. President, 
falls with terrible and crushing severity upon an in- 
teresting and stricken family household. But I am not 
at liberty to enter the sanctuary of this grief I may 
not lift the curtain which veils from pu1)lic view, the 
deep sorrow which sitteth and wecpcth there. 

Mr. President, he whose death we now lament is 
gone to l)e with us here no more. His work on earth 
is done. He strikes a golden harp among the seraphim 
on high. His precepts and his example are left to us 
for our instruction and our profit. Ha])py, indeed, will 
it be if we shall so })rofit by them that we shall l)e 
ready, as he was ready, lor the final summons, in that 
hour which is coming to us all — and to some of us is 
not far oH^ — when this world and its worthlessness shall 
fade from our sinking vision. 

Mr. President, I offer the following resolutions: 

Resohcd, That the Senate has received with fleep sensibility the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Jacob Collamer, late a senator 
of the United States from the State of Vermont. 

Resolved, That the members of the Senate, from a sincere desire 
of showing every mark of respect due to the memory of Hon. Jacob 
Collamer, will go into mourning by wearing crape on the left arm 
for thiity days. 

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect for the memory of 
the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 

Ordered, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to 
the House of Representatives. 



S' 



Address of Mr. Harris, of New York. 

Mr. President: It is not for Vermont to mourn 
alone; New York claims the privilege of standing by 
her side in this hour of her affliction, of bending with 
her in grief over the grave of her illustrious senator. 
He was the son of Vermont by adoption, of New York 
by birth. The elevated position he so long occupied, 
the extensive influence he so long wielded, the honor 
awarded to him by all, may justly excite the pride of 
both his native and his adopted State. A man of sin- 
gular worth and rare virtue has been lost to both. 

As senators, we may well unite in paying our tribute 
of respect to the menu)ry of one so justly honored, and 
pause in our deliberations to bestow our homage upon 
one so justly beloved. The Senate has, indeed, lost one 
of its ablest statesmen, one of its purest patriots. In 
honoring such a man, we honor ourselves. 

When we met in this chamber a few days ago, I am 
sure the thought was present to every mind that one of 
our number was not here; that one seat had been made 
vacant; that the oldest, the most experienced, and per- 
haps the wisest of our body, was gone. It is hard for 
us to believe that the venerable form so familiar to us 
here will no longer stand in our midst; that he who so 
lately was the object of our reverence has already been 
carried away into sepulchral darkness; that we shall 
never again listen to words of wisdom and patriotism 
from his lips. Those who knew him best will miss 
him most. In the Senate, where his counsels had been 




so prominent, his death will be felt as no common be- 
reavement. We do well to mourn his loss. 

How frequently, Mr. President, we have been called 
to honor the Senate's dead, to pay the homage which 
friendship is ever prompt to offer to those who have 
been our associates in the nation's council! This is the 
eighth occasion, since I became a member of this body, 
when the Senate has paused to render its public tribute 
to the memory of its dead. The eloquence of Douglas 
and Baker is no longer heard in these halls. Bingham 
and Pearce and Thomson and Bowden and Hicks no 
longer appear in their wonted places. Thus, one after 
another, familiar faces disappear, and the great and the 
good pass from among us. But of them all, not one 
will be more missed from the Senate than he to whose 
memory we now pay the last tribute of affection and 
respect. 

It is not my jiurpose to speak in detail of the life or 
the character or the public services of our lamented 
friend. To do so would be to repeat what has been so 
well and so beautifully said by the senator who has 
preceded me, in the eloquent eulogy to which we have 
just listened. He has traced the course of Judge Col- 
lamer from the earliest beginning of his career to his 
latest hour, showing how, by his energy, his intellectual 
power, and his moral worth, he reached the high position 
he so long occupied. 

I did not know him, as did the senator from Vermont, 

when in the prime and fi-eshness of his life. When we 

first met, the hand of time had touched him. But even 

then I saw enough to realize what he might have been 

^ ,„■ „ ___, „.,„.,,..._ ^ 



wlien in the full maturity and vigor of his manhoorl. 
He had passed the allotted period of human life; yet 
even his latest years were devoted, with equal fidelity 
and success, to the service of his country, and to the 
last he continued to exhibit the fruits of a mind well 
disciplined by early habits of industry and well furnished 
with the rich stores of a long experience. In him were 
happily combined those elements which constitute a 
sound and judicious statesman. A man of great per- 
sonal dignity, he was justly esteemed for the excellence 
of his judgment and the purity of his character. His 
most prominent characteristics were, I think, sound 
discretion, clear discernment, good common sense, and 
great honesty of purpose. No purer patriot ever par- 
ticipated in the councils of the nation. 

He did not often occupy the attention of the Senate 
in debate, but when he did rise to speak he was sure to 
receive the most respectful and earnest attention. Such 
was the directness and force of his argument, so affluent 
were his resources, both of wisdom and experience, so 
minute was his knowledge of public affairs, that all 
present, senators and spectators, became eager and 
instructed listeners. 

He had looked upon life with an observing eye. No 
man was more thoroughly conversant with the great 
interests of the country. His memory seemed almost 
exhaustless, and from its treasures he was ever ready to 
draw instruction for the benefit of others. It was, 
however, in his private and friendly intercourse that I 
learned most to admire him. I count it among the 



i!' 



felicities of my life that I \^'as pcriiiitted to know him, 
and in some degree to enjoy his friendship. 

But he has been taken from us in the midst of his 
usefulness. His sun went down in l)riglitness; no twi- 
li<;lit oliscured its setting. When his appointed time 
had come, disease, "not tardy to perform its destined 
office," dismissed him from earth, and he has gone to 
his heavenly rest. 

Judge CoLLAMER was happy in the circumstances of 
his death. Of him it may be said, as it was of John 
Quincy Adams, that "no excesses of a profligate youth, 
no vices of middle life, had shattered and hurried to a 
premature dissolution the lx)dy in which his incorrupt- 
ible spirit resided. Nothing in his habits of life inter- 
fered with nature, to whose gentle influences it was left 
to destroy gradually, and to restore in a good old age to 
its parent dust, the perishable part of our friend. The 
law of mortality, which knows no exception among the 
passing generations of our race, was executed in his 
case with as much tenderness and reserve, so to speak, 
as is ever permitted by Providence." 

He was not left to be an object of compassion to his 
friends and admirers. No painful contrasts forced them 
to revert in nu'mory to Ijetter days. But with a mind 
unimpaired, with an interest in life unabated, with a 
self-command which protracted sickness had not de- 
stroyed, he passed to his rest. Thus we pay our last 
tribute to the memory of one whose life has been long, 
and useful, and illustrious. In private life he was with- 
out reproai^k As a lawyer, he was an ornament to his 
nolde profession; as a judge, he was learned and up- 



m^ 



riglit; as a senator, he occupied the front rank among 
the statesmen of our country. There may have been 
those whose career has been more briUiant and dazzhng, 
but there have been few whose labors have been more 
useful, or who have secured for themselves a reputation 
more enviable or enduring. We all respected and ad- 
mired him while living, and, now that he is dead, we 
render our sincere homage to his memory. Never 
again will he grace this chamber with his presence; 
never again shall we hear his voice. He has passed 
through the vicissitudes of a long and eventful life; he 
has met and manfully fulfilled the duties allotted to him 
upon earth. Death came to him in the ripeness of his 
years and his fame. No stain rests upon his honored 
name. His life was full of moral beauty; and with 
mingled feelings of reverence and lov^, we commemorate 
his virtues and lament his loss. 



Address of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland. 

Mr. President: The loss of such a man as Jacob 
CoLLAMER to the public councils at any time would 
have been deeply lamented. In the existing condition 
of the country the feeling is deepened, and the event 
justly esteemed a serious calamity. He had been so 
long in the public service, his course was so w^ell known, 
the character of his mind so frequently and so favorably 
illustrated, his wisdom so uniformly exhibited, and during 
our recent perils, and the complications consequent upon 



them, his patriotism as well as his wisdom was so con- 
spicuous and comprehensive, that wherever his death 
became known it was recognized as a great national 
affliction. And so it is. Valual)le as we, his associates 
especially, know were his teachings and example during 
the past four years, now that the shock of arms has 
ceased, the flow of fraternal blood arrested, and the 
authority of the government everywhere reinstated, 
there yet remain questions of great interest to be ad- 
justed, upon which his advice would have l^een of great 
importance. From my intimate knowledge of him, I 
deplore his loss the more because I am satisfied that he 
would have greatly assisted us in so solring those cpies- 
tions as to make our Union more perfect than it ever 
has been — making it a Union supported by the hearts 
of the people as well as by the force of constitutional obli- 
gation. The measures calculated to effect at the earliest 
moment this great and priceless result require high 
intellectual and moral qualities — qualities so elevated 
as to be inaccessil)le to the weaknesses and prejudices 
which are often, to the impairing of their usefulness, 
seen to control even cultivated minds. It is from the 
general conviction that these qualities were possessed 
by our deceased associate, that the voice of regret at 
his decease was so general. 

The universal sentiment seemed to be that under the 
guidance of wisdom such as his, all would be well; that 
his exposition of the policy suited to the vital difficulties 
of the hour would be so clear and statesmanlike as 
materially to influence the deliberations of Congress, 
inform and satisfy the public judgment, and hasten their 



safe and speedy settlement. And well might this im- 
pression prevail, for to such a work the mind of Judge 
CoLLAMER was admirably adapted. Nature had en- 
dowed him with excellent mental capacity, and he had 
cultivated it with great care and diligence. His knowl- 
edge of the institutions and history of our country was 
alike exact and profound. He had studied them not 
only in their details, but in their philosophy. He came, 
therefore, to the consideration of all measures of pub- 
lic policy with great advantages. Impressed with the 
conviction that our institutions, if administered as our 
fathers designed, contained every power necessary to 
secure individual liberty and the public welfare, he was, 
whether in war or in peace, for keeping every depart- 
ment of the government within the limits prescribed 
by the Constitution. To transcend these under any 
exigency he ever repudiated as inadmissible and dan- 
gerous. With a mind strongly conservative by nature 
and training, while doing full justice to the different 
opinions of others, he at all times opposed as a solemn 
duty measures or principles projected or maintained by 
any department of the government which he believed 
were unwarranted by the Constitution. This he ex- 
hibited in strong terms in his admirable and instructive 
speech of the 12th of February, 1862, on the Treasury- 
note bill. Referring to the doctrine of necessity as 
justifjdng or excusing the exercise of powers not dele- 
gated by the Constitution, he said: 

"I do not know how other members of the Senate look upon the 
obligation of their oath to support the Constitution of the United 
States. To me it is an oath registered in heaven as well as upon 



earth, and there is no necessity that, in my estimation, will justify 
me in the breach of it. I think those men who are now risking 
their lives upon the high places of the field to support the Constitu- 
tion are not to be treated in this hall by us with the concession that 
we are ready, if the necessity calls for it, to break it. All that our 
rebel enemies are engaged in is the overthrow of the Constitution, 
and all that we are contending for is its maintenance and preserva- 
tion." 

In the deljate, too, on the confiscation bill his view 
on an important question of public law is also illustra- 
tive of him. The doctrine he announced on that occa- 
sion, though not held by all statesmen of the present 
day, is now of great practical moment as well as of 
vital interest to thousands of our citizens. 

Referring to the asserted obligation of the people of 
the South to suljmit to the authority of the de facto 
governments which prevailed there, and to the legal 
consequences of such sidjmission, he observed: 

" However loyal their feelings, a government dc facto is over them. 
They cannot get away. They have nowhere to go. They have 
nothing to go with. What would you have a man there to do] 
What has this nation a right to demand of him?" 

And among other instances, relying upon what he 
justly characterized as the "bright and high" example 
of Chief Justice Hale in taking office under the usurped 
government of Cromwell, he stated that in his opinion 
a citizen otherwise loyal did not commit treason by 
submitting to or even by holding office under a de facto 
government; and his concluding words upon this sub- 
ject were these: 

" Such, sir, is the respect paid by the world, and especially that 
part of the world from which we spring, to a de facto government, 

i " ^' -^ ' -^-^- -.-- — . — - [gj 



and the nations of the earth deal with them as governments, no 
matter what the usurpation." 

I have no purpose, and certainly the present would 
be a very unfit occasion to indulge it if I had, to exam- 
ine into the correctness of this proposition or its appli- 
cation to the late rebellion. The speech is referred to, 
as was the one before quoted, because it accounts in 
part, I think, for the impression so widely entertained 
that a conservative and enlightened statesman in the 
inscrutable providence of God had been taken from us 
at an epoch in our country's history when his services 
could not have failed to be of great value. But irre- 
spective of all particular exhibitions of it, it was not 
surprising to those who knew Judge Collamer in ad- 
vance that he proved so well fitted to the duties of the 
important positions to which his State called him. An 
habitual student, with a mind perfectly honest, with a 
long experience at the bar and on the bench of his own 
State, (a bar and l^ench ever distinguished for ability and 
learning,) he came to the councils of the general gov- 
ernment thoroughly prepared to meet their highest 
demands, and this the result proved. From the first he 
ranked among the ablest of our jurists and statesmen, 
and continued to maintain that rank to the last. As long 
as the nine volumes of the Vermont reports of cases 
during his judicial career remain, the exactness and 
depth of his legal knowledge will serve to guide and 
inform the profession and promote everywhere the 
cause of enlightened jurisprudence; and while the de- 
bates of Congress during the period of his service in 
either branch are left, we who are yet here, and those 



who shall succeed us, will find in his speeches lessons 
full of instruction and replete with patriotism on almost 
every question of public policy or of constitutional law 
that can arise. In the purity of his life, too; the industry 
with which he discharged his various official functions; 
in his freedom from prejudice, his constant regard to the 
rights and interests of all the States, and in his uniform 
courtesy to his associates, we have an example at all 
times to be honored and followed. 

Mr. President, it was my good fortune to have been 
associated with him, not only in the Senate, but for 
some fourteen months in the executive councils during 
the administration of General Taylor. Before tliat 
period I only knew him as a distinguished puldic ser- 
vant; but in those months our relations Ijecame, to my 
great benefit and gratification, intimate, leading to a 
friendship which it is a great pleasure to me now to 
remember was never even for a moment disturbed. 
Those who are acquainted with his administration of 
the Post Office Department during that time know that 
it was in all respects admirable. Its vast and compli- 
cated business, throughout his administration, was never 
more ably conducted. I feel that it is unnecessary, in 
the presence in which I stand, to say more of his public 
career. No praise of it, however great, would those 
who have been with him in this chamber consider 
exaggerated. And for the same reason would it be idle 
for me to do more than to allude to his social qualities, 
for these we all knew and delighted in. The })ublic 
business of the day ended, its cares dismissed, and 
private intercourse resumed, which of us does not 



^ 



recollect that his conversation was always improving 
friendly, and entertaining I To allude to it even affords 
but a melancholy pleasure, as it so forcibly reminds us 
of the great private affliction we have sustained. But 
in our bereavement we are not without consolation. 
The sad evil did not occur until our friend had served 
his country most faithfully and well, and particularly 
during the last four years of its severe trial with un- 
surpassed ability and the purest patriotism. 

It is a further consolation that it did not occur until 
the crisis of our nation's peril had flivorably terminated; 
until the fratricidal blow aimed at its life by wicked 
ambition, proving for a time able to mislead the hon- 
est masses of the South, was so utterly defeated and 
crushed that its renewal is impossible, and until the 
authority of the Constitution and laws was restored and 
submitted to in every part of the land. Our consola- 
tion, however, would . have been the greater if he had 
been suffered to remain until he could have seen 
established that stronger bond of union than Consti- 
tution and laws alone can give, which is to be found in 
mutual sympathy and affection; until he had seen us 
again, and more perfectly than ever, one people, ac- 
knowledging the same political principles, influenced 
by the same motives, and impelled by the same purpose 
of working out, under and by virtue of the governments 
of the Union and of the States, a prosperity and renown 
greater than we have possessed in the past, and, aban- 
doning forever the heresy of secession, and al)olishing 
the special institution, (the causes, direct or indirect, of 
the late convulsion,) resolved to make our Union, to 



which we owe all of our happiness, individual and 
social, that we have heretofore enjoyed or can hope for, 
not only firmer than ever, but, as far as human effort 
can accomplish it, make it perpetual. 

If this additional privilege had been vouchsafed him 
by Providence, our departed associate and friend would, 
I believe, have left the world without other pang than 
that acute one which is inseparable from the sundering 
of domestic ties, (ties never stronger than in his case,) 
and in the fidl assurance, which takes from death its 
sting, and from the grave its victory, of that judgment 
in mercy which a firm l)elief in the truth of the Chris- 
tian dispensation assures him who holds it will l)e 
awarded to a well-spent and religious life on earth. 



Address of Mr. Fessenden, of Maine. 

Mr. President: Among the distinguished men ^\•h() 
during the past ten years have occupied these seats, I 
regarded Senator Collamer as having no superior. He 
was not among those, if any such may be found, selected 
through his own skill in political combinations, in reward 
for party services, to advance the interests of personal 
followers, or on account of individual popularity. AVith 
great directness, not to say abruptness, of speech, ex- 
treme tenacity of opinion and purpose, and apparently a 
somewhat proi)ortionate disregard of the opinions of 
others when differing from his own, he was not likely 
to gather around him and retain the attachment of a 



party devoted to himself, or to interest large numbers 
of men in his individual success. Notwithstandinof 
these obstacles in his political path, few among our 
eminent public men have been more successful in at- 
tracting and retaining the confidence and regard of the 
people among whom he lived, and inspiring with pro- 
found respect those with whom it was his fortune to be 
associated in the conduct of public aifairs. 

That this was so may be accounted for in some 
measure by the character of the people whom he so 
long and so ably represented, and in a still greater de- 
gree by the possession of intellectual and moral qualities 
which overshadowed all such trifling defects, if so they 
may be considered. The small but noble State of 
which he was a most distinguished citizen has long 
been accustomed to look for its official representatives 
among those most eminent for virtue in private, and 
capacity for usefulness in pul)lic, life. It has ever seemed 
to act upon the idea that pul)lic trust should be confided 
to the most faithful and public honors conferred upon 
the most capable and deserving of its sons. Thence it 
has followed, not only that its domestic affairs have been 
well and ably conducted, but that its weight in the 
councils of the nation has been largely disproportioned 
to the extent of its territory and the number of its 
people. 

Mr. CoLLAMER was the possessor of qualities which 
could not fail to attract the attention and to secure the 
confidence of a people able and disposed to estimate 
men at their true value. Though his love of approba- 
tion was largely developed, he was more anxious to 



deserve than to receive it. Ambitious to secure the 
respect of others, he never forgot that without his own 
it would be worthless. Gifted by nature with great 
quickness of apprehension, discriminating powers of a 
high order, a just thinker, an admiral)le logician, and 
withal a student l^oth from taste and habit, he could not 
but become an able lawyer, more distinguished, perhaps, 
for the exactness of his professional learning than for 
the extent of its range. That leaniing, however, em- 
braced all the subjects coming within the sphere of his 
practice and involved with the pursuits of those among 
whom he lived, and \\liose interests he was called upon 
to protect. 

Carrying to the bench of his State such habits of 
study and thought, and such intellectual powers, and 
with them a most delicate conscientiousness, he could 
not be otherwise than an eminent and upright magis- 
trate — eminent even among the able and learned men 
who, from its earliest history, have adorned its judicial 
annals, and given to American law character and re- 
nown. It is not, however, for me to speak of him at 
length either as counsellor or judge, inasmuch as I 
never happened to witness his efforts at the bar or 
upon the bench. Yet, though living in another and not 
an adjoining State, his professional and judicial reputa- 
tion was such as could not be confined within the 
limits of his circuit, and his name had been familiar to 
me long before it was my good fortune to meet him 
where, upon a broader theatre, and at a great crisis in 
his country's history, requiring the exercise of the best 



powers of the human mind, he was destined to perform 
a most useful and honorable part. 

Our lamented associate brought to the Senate, at the 
commencement of the thirty-fourth Congress, a rich 
experience in legislation, gathered in the halls of his 
adopted State and in the national House of Representa- 
tives. With a man like him, time never was suffered 
to pass unimproved. Intrusted with public affairs, to 
make himself familiar with all that pertained to them, 
to master the details of business, and to guard with 
vigilance the public interests, were to him solemn and 
religious duties. To this end he spared no labor how- 
ever severe, and shrunk from no task however burden- 
some. With such habits, and thus ripe in intellect and 
experience, he commenced his senatorial career, not, 
like many others, with everything to learn, but fully 
anned, master of his weapons, and ready for the great 
conflict upon Mdiich he was about to enter. Time 
never finds a gi'eat occasion without finding, also, earlier 
or later, the men fitted to meet it. Familiar with his 
country's history, learned in its laws, thoroughly imbued 
with its principles of government, in the best sense a 
patriot, thoughtful and wise in council, firm in purpose, 
and spotless in character, our associate and friend was 
admirably fitted to meet the duties of a perilous hour. 
How well and bravely those duties were performed w^e 
can all bear witness. Spared to see the clouds of civil 
war, which had so long darkened over his beloved 
country, finally dissipated, and the sun of peace rising 
in unobscured brilliancy, he passed away from earth too 
soon, as it would seem to our imperfect vision, and 



©=■ 



-"'-■"■~"-'™"~" 



while very much to Avhich his sagacity and prudence 
might have largely contributed still remains to be done. 

Conspicuous in the del)ates of the Senate, Mr. Col- 
lamer, though of prepossessing personal appearance 
and ready in speech, was not remarkable for oratorical 
power, and at no pains to ornament his discourse with 
rhetorical illustration. His remarks were always suited 
to the occasion, and confined strictly to the question in 
debate. Plain, simple, and unpretending in manner 
and style, always severely logical and master of his 
subject, he was invariably heard with attention, and 
with the expectation, never disappointed, that new light 
would be cast upon the question, however elaborately it 
might have been previously discussed by others. His 
speeches were well considered, but never assumed the 
shai)e of orations, carefully written out, adorned with 
rhet(H-ical flourish, and "pointed with inverted commas." 
The closet was to him a place for prayer and thought, 
for forgiveness of injuries, real or fancied, and for the 
cultivation of good will to man, rather than a lal:)oratory 
of vituperation, open or covert, whether of men or 
measures. Quick at repartee and somewhat imi)atient 
of interruption, his retorts were sometimes caustic, but 
had no tinge of malice. If their sting was felt it left 
no wound; while the rich vein of humor, which never 
failed, and an inexhaustil)le fund of apposite and amusing 
anecdote, always illustrative and nu)st luq)pily related, 
rendered his efforts alike interesting to a miscellaneous 
audience and instructive to his associates. 

You and I, Mr. President, have long known and felt 
how delightful our lamented friend was in private and 



social intercourse, how playful and genial was his wit, 
how fertile he was of anecdote, how keen of observation, 
and how instructive his conversation, both in lighter and 
graver moods. No one of his associates in this chamber 
can l)etter than myself bear testimony to his kindness 
of heart, his readiness to impart infomiation, and give 
the advantage of his learning and wisdom to those 
about him, whenever sought or needed. Seated by his 
side, session after session, for many years, I habitually 
asked his advice and sought his aid whenever embar- 
rassed by doubt or difficulty. The patience with which 
he listened, and the ready kindness with wiiich he 
responded, imparting from his rich store all that was 
needful, compelling me to make his thoughts my own, 
could not but secure my gratitude and win my affection. 
I venerated and loved the man as one regards an elder 
brother, upon whose superior knowledge and wisdom, 
and unselfish singleness of heart, he feels that he may 
in all emergencies safely rely; and I grieve for his loss 
as one laments the breaking of a link in that chain of 
life's pleasures which he feels to be growing shorter 
and shorter day by day. 

At a period like the present, calling for so much wise 
experience and unselfish devotion in our national coun- 
cils, the loss of such a man cannot but be severely felt. 
And yet, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, it well 
happens that the termination of no single life is ever 
permitted to produce more than a momentary ripple 
upon the great ocean of human affairs. Whatever 
impress the individual may make upon the time in 
which he lived is soon trodden out by myriads of ad- 

ii ^" ^^^ ----^ -^^ - -.^---.- - """" ii 



vancing footsteps. Other hands take up the unfinished 
work, and it goes on without any perceptible stay or 
interruption. The noljlest ambition of man is, there- 
fore, to perform well and faithfully the part assigned 
to him, and he is fortunate if content with what he may 
receive, and humbly thankful if spared responsibilities 
beyond his abihty to bear. It may be truly said of our 
departed friend that he was true to his own conceptions 
of duty, both in public and private life. And if he was 
not without a love for worldly distinction and eminent 
place, that love was subordinate always to his convictions 
of right, and his highest aim was to serve fiiithfully, and 
to divine acceptance, as a Christian soldier, in the great 
battle of life. 



Address of Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut. 

Mr. Peesident : The Nestor of the American Senate 
has been called from the scene where his counsels have 
been so often heard, and his wisdom was so justly 
honored. Whatever of eloquence, of learning, of skill 
in debate, may remain in this body, the death of Judge 
CoLLAMER leaves a void here which will not easily be 
supplied. Whoever aspires to fill his peculiar place, 
and exert a similar influence, must possess not only 
equal abilities and a character as pure, but a judgment 
enlightened like his by the lessons, and a mind stored 
with the fruits, of a long and varied experience. 

If, in our estimate of the dead, we are sometimes 



mmwammmmKmwentmmmr'aBmmtmmmmwv 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 35 

liable to pass beyond the measure of a just appreciation, 
we may be assured that whatever language of eulogy 
is applied to him, we are in little danger of exceeding 
a correct judgment of his merits. In the Senate, and 
wherever else he was called to act, he was a man 
so marked and peculiar that his superiority in many 
striking respects was at once acknowledged. It was 
my good fortune to know him somewhat intimately; 
first in the House of Rejiresentatives, and more lately 
in the Senate. AYhile he was conspicuous in both 
these positions among the celebrated and able men with 
whom he was associated in public affairs, there were 
certain qualities, intellectual and moral, in which he was 
not surpassed by any of the distinguished characters of 
his time. And, first of all, he was a just man. His 
integrity was a pervading and governing characteristic 
of his nature; which not only controlled his conduct, 
but shaped his sentiments and opinions, so that he 
seemed gifted with an unerring judgment of right and 
wrong. Enlightened by this high sense of justice, his 
reasoning faculties could scarcely fail in the attainment 
of truth ; and for him to refuse its acknowledgment or 
resist its sway was an impossibility. Hence it was 
that in those intellectual processes for which he was so 
distinguished, he seemed never to be contending merely 
for polemic victory, but rather to be illuminating, by 
the light of his unclouded reason, the path which his 
controlling sense of justice compelled him to pursue. 
It was impossible to follow him in the steps of his 
irrefutable logic ,without being struck by his perfect 
sincerity, as well as by the strength of his reasoning; 



m- 



and the arguments by which his own mind was con- 
vinced, seldom failed to convince his hearers. Thus as 
an advocate he compelled the assent of courts and juries 
to his propositions. But it was as a judge that he 
seemed in his peculiarly appropriate sphere. Here, his 
hio-h sense of right and his unrivalled reasoning powers 
combined to render his legal judgments almost infallible; 
and the suitors to whom justice was dispensed by him 
seldom complained even of his adverse decisions. 

To us our venerated and deeply-lamented friend was 
chiefly known by his punctual and constant attendance 
and his faithful labors in this body, in the business and 
debates of which he took a leading part. Here for 
many years we have listened to his words of wdsdom, 
and have been guided by the light which he shed upon 
every subject which he discussed; yet I cannot recall 
an instance in which he exerted those great abilities, 
with which he was intrusted for the good of man- 
kind, for the purposes of ostentation or self-display. 
The arts of eloquence he apparently little esteemed. 
These, with the graces of rhetoric and the felicities 
of expression, he left entirely to others, satisfying him- 
self with a plainness of language, and often with a 
homeliness of phrase, which sometimes gave an added 
strength to his unanswerable reasoning. In the midst, 
however, of his closest argumentation, the flash of wit, 
the quaint stroke of humor, the apt and illustrative 
anecdote, would occasionally vary tlie current of thought 
and relieve the attention which might otherwise have 
been wearied by the severe and exact logic to which 
he usually so rigidly adhered. Nor should it be for- 



mm 



©- 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 37 

gotten that, with all his power in debate, he was 
generous and considerate of others. No harsh or unkind 
word ever escaped his lips. He seldom indulged even 
in repartee, passing in silence any attack, real or sup- 
posed, upon himself, and applying his powers only to the 
sul)ject-matter of his discourse. As he was respected, 
so he was respectful and courteous in debate, treating 
others with the same consideration and regard which 
all conceded to his own pure character and superior 
abilities. 

In the truest and best sense of the word. Judge Col- 
lamer was a conservative. To conserve, to defend, to 
uphold and maintain the government, the Union, the 
Constitution, the laws of the United States — this was 
his constant effort, the mission and the labor of his 
life. He did not believe, however, that true con- 
servatism consists in upholding ancient error, or per- 
sisting in wrongs because they seem by the lapse of 
time to have become irremediable, or by custom and 
usage to have grown inviolable. On the contrary, he 
thought that what is good in a government may best be 
defended and preserved by seeking the proper occasion 
to correct abuses and rectify mistakes. A genuine 
conservative, he was not the blind advocate of existing 
evils nor the stubliorn apologist of the past. He knew 
when to yield to unavoidable vicissitudes, when to favor 
necessary changes, wdien to originate improvements 
and suggest alterations, as well as when to resist the 
visionary schemes of reckless innovators. He sustained 
no policy merely because it was old; he favored no 
measure merely because it was new. 






m 



38 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

I have spoken of Judge Collamer as he was seen 
in the performance of his pubHc duties. There was 
another side of his character, in which the persuasive 
advocate, the inflexil)le judge, the vdse and pohtic 
• statesman, appeared in a more genial and winning hght. 
In the unrestrained intercourse of private Hfe and the 
flow of ordinary conversation there was a chann in his 
society which those who knew him intimately cannot 
soon forget. The judge and the senator were forgotten 
in the brilliant and delightful companion, the generous 
and sympathizing friend, the wise, the candid, the far- 
seeing man. 

In the fulness of his years, after a life of usefulness 
and of honor, and in the assurance of a Christian hope 
of a blessed immortality, he has gone to his reward. 
Of those who survive him, of those who in coming 
years are to succeed him here and elsewhere, few 
can equal him in ability and in virtue. His intel- 
lectual and his moral traits partook of the antique 
mould, rather than of the modern type of character. 
Yet, though rare and peculiar, they are not inimitable, 
and to the nol)le and aspiring youth of our countrj', 
whose hearts beat high with the love of civil liberty, 
and who are fired with a generous ambition to benefit 
and exalt the human race, they furnish an example 
worthy of earnest emulation and full of the highest 
encouragement. They may see him in youth studious, 
laborious, and virtuous; in manhood, exerting all his 
powers for the good of mankind; and in his ripened 
age, still in the full possession of his facidties, and con- 
scientiously performing aU his duties, crowned with 



@- 



m 

HON JACOB COLLAMER. 39 



public honors and the respect and affection of a grateful 
j^eople. They may learn, also, from his life, that the 
greatest talents do not eclipse the higher and purer 
light of a truly Christian character; and they cannot 
fail to perceive the superiority of moral over intellectual 
greatness, when they observe that with all his pre- 
eminent abilities, the most striking characteristic of 
Jacob Collamer was his perfect integrity. 



Address of Mr. Riddle, of Delaware. 

In sorrow for the necessity, with pleasure for the 
privilege which the sad necessity has created, I, too, 
Mr. President, second the resolutions before us. 

Eulogy is not my forte. Obituaries are to me un- 
pleasant. Eulogies I would not attempt; obituaries 
sometimes become an imperative duty. If perchance 
the one is blended with the other, it shows at least that 
the heart is holding such dominion over the mind as to 
impel utterance to honest sentiments. 

In the death of Jacob Collamer, I think Vermont 
has lost one of her brightest jewels, the Senate one of 
its most courteous members, and the country one of its 
greatest statesmen. He was great in feeling, great in 
thought, great in principle, and great in action. He 
was not a Cicero, because he wanted, in some respects, 
Cicero's elocution; he was not a Demosthenes, because 
he wanted the oratory of Demosthenes; he was not a 
Csesar, because he wanted Caesar's ambition, obstinacy. 



•m 



@ . __. ,,_,i i 

40 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

and extravagance. He was a Gracchns — greater than 
Cicero — -greater than Demosthenes, and greater than 
Caesar, for all practical purposes in the Senate. The 
compeers of Calhoun, Clay, Webster and Wright, by 
his demise, are nearly, if not entirely, extinct. 

But for the illumination of their minds, reflected by 
the archives of our country, we would be left compara- 
tively in the dark to grapple with the difficulties which 
surround us; hence the greater the loss. Would that 
he had lived to aid in the great work of reconstruction 
which we are, I hope, about to inaugurate. 

My first acquaintance with Mr. Collameb was in 
1849 or 1850, when he was Postmaster General of the 
United States, the duties of which office he discharged 
with signal ability and general satisfaction. I do con- 
fess that the impressions which he made upon me 
at that time were different from those of later days, 
when we became better acquainted and more intimate. 
He was apparently an austere man, but there was as 
little of harshness or rigidity in his composition as of 
any man who ever lived. Honesty, dignity, and self- 
possession, i)rominent characteristics of the man, nat- 
urally created such an impression, and especially upon a 
young man who differed from him materially upon most 
political questions, and who was predisposed to oppose 
his administration. This apparent austerity in a meas- 
ure separated us, but the union, like the welded link in 
the chain, only united us more strongly when made. 

An epitome of his life I would gladly give you, but 
that has been furnished by his surviving and venerable 
colleague. It may, nevertheless, be proper for me to 



allude — I trust it will be considered modestly — to his 
deportment as a senator, his position as a jurist, and his 
character as a statesman. Some men when they acquire 
the position of senator, (I use the word "acquire" with- 
out wishing it to be literally applied to the deceased,) 
seek popularity ratlier than labor to direct to proper 
channels the popularity which their good acts and posi- 
tion have created. This is the rock, mark my word for 
it, upon which Great Britain is bound to split. In 
other words, some men embrace the "isms" of the 
day — I use the manufactured word "isms," not knowing 
any other so comprehensive — ^I'ather than breast the 
storm which such "isms" naturally engender, and which 
must ultimately destroy every vestige of republican 
institutions if persevered in. Judge Collamer was 
not of this class; and in this respect he must have 
elevated himself in the estimation of the honorable 
men of Vermont. He believed, and I think correctly, 
that if our ship of state was to be stranded, it would 
be by flmaticism, and the denial to the States of their 
reserved rights under the federal Constitution. His 
last speech before this body justifies me making such 
a declaration; but political expressions, or even ex- 
pressions which lean that way, are not relevant to this 
occasion. I may, however, be permitted to add, that 
"his solid qualities as a man, and his evident desire to 
observe the right as a guide in political matters, won 
for him many friends, even among those who, like 
myself, differed from him essentially in the conclusions 
to which he arrived." I have thus, Mr. President, 
merely briefly alluded to his views to show that a great 



m 



man can, to a great extent, shake off the shackles of 
party, be sustained by an honest constituency, and shine 
out, in the estimation of an enhghtened world, as a 
patriot and statesman. Such was Judge Collamer. 
No senator ever doubted his honesty; no senator ever 
questioned his integrity; and when he arose to address 
you, Mr. President, he was recognized, as he should 
have ])een, over many of us, in consequence of his age, 
experience, ability, and acknowledged statesmanship. 
If this be a compliment, God grant his friends may 
duly appreciate it. 

I sjieak, sir, perhaj^s, apparently with too much feeling, 
but it fortuned I was his companion upon his return 
home after the adjournment of the last Congi-ess. I 
may say that during our last journey I learned to know 
him better, and, if possible, respect him more. I knew 
he was mifamiliar with selfishness. His laudable am- 
bition was satiated. His country, with which I may 
say he was born, was his adopted child. He had grown 
up with it. In boyhood he fought its early battles; in 
manhood he contended for its institutions; and in old 
age, when death was dawning upon him, he enunciated 
the noblest principles of his life, and the only principles 
which can save this government. I leave to senators 
and the country to judge what these principles are. 

Before to-day I did not know Judge Collamer's 
religious views. I knew he was spiritually inclined, and 
I believe no man can be great without such inclination. 
It is the germ from which true greatness grows, cultivate 
it as you may. It enlarges the heart, l3rightens the 
intellect, and gives true nobility to the soul. It is 



11 



m 



equally certain that many assume it for base and mer- 
cenary purjioses, and they are the pests upon society; 
but Judge CoLLAMER, I may say, and let the remark 
not appear sacrilegious, it assumed. He was honest 
enough to admit his errors; bold enough to confront his 
enemies; conscientious enough to concede his faults; 
and humble enough to pray to his God for forgiveness. 

During the journey to which I have alluded I ad- 
vanced the idea that although man was mortal, govern- 
ment, the creature of man upon this earth, properly reg- 
ulated, might become immortal; that morality and love 
for the neighbor were the essential attributes of lasting 
power and sovereignty, and that sovereignty maintained 
under such instincts would become immortal. To this 
the judge partially dissented, but expressed a desire to 
read a work upon the sul)ject, a copy of which I sent him 
a few months before he died. 

He also expressed a desire to read the works of 
Emanuel vSwedenborg, whom he considered as one of 
the greatest men and writers of his age; but feeling, as 
it were, that his days were numbered, he said to me in 
a suppressed tone, "It is too late to commence such an 
undertaking." Thus we parted, and parted forever, un- 
less to meet in the same mansion in another and better 
world. 

May the Green Mountain boys of Vermont decorate 
his grave with the verdure and natural grandeur of their 
hills; and may the constitutional principles which he 
enunciated and advocated be indelibly impressed upon 
their minds ! I would want this, to use a paradox, be 
an unwritten inscription upon his tomb. 



i)- 



Address of Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. President: Since Henry Clay left this chamber 
by the gate of death, no senator has passed that way 
crowned with the same honorable years as Mr. Col- 
lamer; nor has any senator passed that way whose 
departure created such a blank in the public councils, 
unless we except Mr. Douglas. He was our most ven- 
erable associate ; but his place here had not shrunk with 
time. He was, when we last saw him, as important to 
our del)ates and to our conclusions as he had ever been. 
He still possessed all those peculiar powers of argument 
and illustration, seasoned with a New England salt, 
which he had from the beginning. He was not so old 
that he was not often the life of the body. 

When he came into the Senate, it was after long and 
various experience as lawyer, judge, representative in 
the other house, member of the Cabinet, and then 
again as judge, in all which characters he had been 
single, pure, honest, fliithful, and laborious. Though 
little of a traveller, he had seen much. He had also 
read much, and he had done much. But all the results 
of observation, study, and action had so passed into his 
nature as to become a part of himself If he expressed 
an opinion even on law, it seemed to come from him- 
self, and not from books He was the authority. And 
yet he was fond of books, whether in his own profes- 
sion or in other departments of study. 

His fidelit}^ assumed the form of accuracy in all that 
he said or did. He spoke accurately, and he was 



IS- 



especially accurate with his pen. Perhaps nobody was 
apter in the style or language of legislation. He was 
an excellent draughtsman, although, without doubt, too 
professional for a taste not exclusively professional — ^in- 
dulging in traditional phrases and those favorite super- 
fluities of the lawyer, said and aforesaid. The great act 
of July 13, 1861, which gave to the war for the sup- 
pression of the rebellion its first congressional sanction, 
and invested the President with new powers, was drawn 
by him. It was he that set in motion the great ban, 
not yet lifted, by which the rebel States were shut out 
from the communion of the Union. This is a landmark 
in our history, and it might properly be known by the 
name of its author, as "Collamer's statute." 

All who ever sat with him in the committee-room 
will long remember the carefulness with which he gave 
his counsels and the completeness with which he ex- 
plained them. Perhaps his wisdom and facility in 
business were nowhere more manifest. I seize this oc- 
casion to confess most gratefully my own personal obli- 
gations to him in this interesting relation. 

The same character which appeared in the commit- 
tee-room showed itself in conversation, enlivened by a 
constant humor. He, too, had his "little story" for 
illustration; but in this respect he differed from the 
late President as one of his own Vermont mountains 
differs from an outstretched and laughing prairie of the 
west. In manner he was Socratic. The curious ob- 
server, fond of tracing resemblances, might fancy that 
in the form of his head, and even of his person, he was 
not unlike the received image of Socrates; while his 



colloquial powers might recall Socrates again, as lie is 
pictured by the affectionate Xenophon, "handling all 
who conversed with him just as he pleased." He had 
also the same anticpie simplicity, and I doubt not he 
would have followed the wise man of Athens bare-foot 
in the waters of the Ilissus. I would not push this re- 
semblance too far, and I use it only for illustration, 
not for parallel. And yet, as I bring to mind our de- 
parted friend, he seems to assume this classical figure. 
Call him, then, if you please, the Green Mountain 
Socrates. 

Debate, except on the highest occasions, is only con- 
versation in jjublic. With him it was conversation 
always. He spoke, as he conversed, with the same 
pith and humor, and with the same facility. But his 
facility did not tempt him. In this gilded amphitheatre, 
where the speaker is sacrificed to the galleries, as of old 
the gladiator was sacrificed to make a Roman holiday, 
he declined all display, and simply conversed; and such 
was the desire to hear him, that we gathered near to 
catch his words. He was not a frequent speaker, and 
he never spoke except when he had something to say; 
nor did he speak for effect abroad, but only for effect 
in the debate. Of course, he was too honest and too 
considerate of the Senate to speak without the prepara- 
tion of reflection and study. Though at times earnest, 
he was never bitter. He never dropped into the 
debate any poisoned ingredients. 

Sometimes he spoke with much effect, especially on 
matters of law or finance, or business. On the great 
question which for a generation overshadowed all others, 



ll'? 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 47 

and finally wrapped the country in the "living cloud of 
war," he was sincerely anti-slavery, but with certain 
short-comings, which in this impartial tribute ought 
not to be concealed. His lenity toward our monster 
enemy showed itself unconsciously when he spoke of 
mahgnant rebels as "those southern gentlemen who 
had seceded;" and then again when, at an earlier date, 
he spoke of "two civilizations;" but he bore kindly the 
reply that civilization was only on one side. And yet 
on two occasions in this chamber he strove for the 
right very bravely, so that his position was historic. 
One of these was many years ago, shortly after he came 
into the Senate. The other was only last year. The 
historian and the biographer will describe these scenes. 
One of them is the fit subject of art. 

The earliest of these occasions was when, under the 
influence of the President of that day, backed by Jeffer- 
son Davis in the cabinet, an illegal government was set 
up in a distant Territory, which, in defiance of the 
people there, proceeded to institute an infamous Black 
Code borrowed from slavery. The President counte- 
nanced the illegal government and smiled upon the 
Black Code. The representatives of slavery in both 
houses of Congress, with their northern allies, indifferent 
to human rights and greedy only of political power, sus- 
tained the President in his disregard of that fundamental 
principle of the Declaration of Independence that " gov- 
ernment stands on the consent of the governed." The 
contest was unequal. On the one side was a struggling 
people, insulted and despoiled of their rights; on the 
other side was the President, with all the vast powers 






of this republic, with patronage less than now, but very 
prevailing, and with a great political party which gave 
to him an unhesitating support. The contest reached 
this chamber. Naturally it came before the Committee 
on Territories, where happily the good cause was repre- 
sented by Jacob Collamer, of Vermont. The interest 
increased with each day; and when the committee 
reported, a scene ensued without example among us. 
The reports of committees are usually handed in and or- 
dered to be printed ; but now, at the impassioned call of a 
senaatorfrom South Carolina, the report of the committee, 
whitewashing incredible outrages, was read by the chair- 
man at the desk of the Secretary of the Senate. The chair- 
man left his seat for this purpose, and stood face to face 
with the Senate. For two hours the apology for that 
usurpation, which had fastened a Black Code upon an 
inoffensive people, sounded in this chaml^er, while the 
partisans of slavery gloated over the seeming triumph. 
There was a hush of silence, and there was sadness also 
with some, who saw clearly the unpardonable turpitude 
of the sacrifice. Mr. Collamer followed with a mi- 
nority report, signed hy himself alone, which he read at 
the desk of the Secretary, standing face to face with 
the Senate. Jesse D. Bright was at the time our 
President, but he had installed in the chair on that 
momentous occasion none other than that most deter- 
mined artificer of treason and drill-sergeant of the 
rebellion, John Slidell, who sat behind, like Mcphis- 
tophcles looking over the shoulder of Truth, while the 
patriot senator standing before gravely unfolded the 
enormities which had been perpetrated. Few who 



were present then now remain; but none who were 
present then can fail to recall the scene. The report 
which Mr. Collamee read belongs to the history of the 
country. But the scene comes clearly within the do- 
main of art. In the long life of our departed friend it 
was his brightest and most glorious moment — beyond 
anything of honor or power, whether in the Cabinet or 
on the bench. For what is office compared to the 
priceless opportunity, nobly employed, of standing as a 
buttress for human rights? 

The other signal occasion, when he showed much of 
the same character, and was surely inspired by the 
same sentiment, was during the last year, when the 
illustrious President, who now sleeps in immortality, 
undertook, in disregard of Congress and solely by ex- 
ecutive power, to institute civil governments throughout 
that region of the Union where civil governments had 
been overthrown — imitating, in the agencies he em-, 
ployed, the Cromwellian system of ruling by "major 
generals." The case of distant and oj^pressed Kansas 
was revived. Who can forget the awakened leonine 
energy of the aged senator when, contrary to his cus- 
tom, he interrupted another in debate to declare his 
judgment against the power of the President to insti- 
tute permanent civil governments "to last beyond the 
war!" The dividing line was clear. The President 
might exercise a temporary military power, but Con- 
gress must lay the foundations of permanent peace. 
This simple principle was, of course, only the corollary 
of that rule of Jeiferson, which has become one of the 
commonplaces of our political system, asserting "the 



supremacy of the civil over the miUtary authority!" 
The eggs of crocodiles can produce only crocodiles; 
and it is not easy to see how the eggs laid by military 
power can be hatched into an American State. 

This interjected judgment was afterward developed 
in a speech, which for sententious wisdom and solid 
sense is, perhaps, the best he ever delivered. It is not 
long, but, like the Roman sword, it is effective from its 
very shortness. He spoke with the authority of years, 
but he spoke also with another peculiar authority, for it 
was he who drew the act of Congress which placed the 
rebel States under the ban. Positively, earnestly, and 
most persuasively he insisted that Congress should not 
abdicate its control of this question. His conclusion 
was repeated again and again. It was for Congress, he 
said, to say when that state of things existed which 
would entitle the rebel States to perform their functions 
.as integral parts of the Union. It was for Congress to 
decide this question, and not for the President, except 
so far as the President unites in an act of Congress by 
his signature. And he asked, "When will and when 
ought Congress to admit these States as being in their 
normal condition?" To which he answers, "It is not 
enough that they stop their hostility and are repentant. 
They should present fruits meet for repentance. They 
should furnish to us, by their actions, some evidence 
that the condition of loyalty and obedience is their true 
condition again, and Congress must pass upon it; otlier- 
ivise ive have no securities. And I insist that the Presi- 
dent, by making peace with them — if you please, by 
surceasing military operations — does not alter their status 



until Congress ^msses upon it." Then, again, filled witli 
the thought, he exclaims, "The great essential thing 
now to insist upon is that Congress shall do nothing 
which can in any way create a doubt about our power 
over the subject." And still pleading against executive 
interference, he says, "I believe that when re-establish- 
ing the condition of peace with that people, Congress, 
representing the United States, has power, in ending 
this war, as any other war, to get some security for the 
future. It would be a strange thing if it were not true 
that this nation, in ending a civil as well as a foreign 
war, could close it and make peace by obtaining, if not 
indemnity for the past, at least some security for future 
peace!' This was the last speech of our patriot senator. 
It is his dying legacy to his country. Let all, from 
President to citizen, heed its words. The aspiration 
so often expressed to-day that he were now alive to take 
part in the restoration of the rebel States is fulfilled. 
He lives in his declared opinions, which are now echoed 
from the tomb. 

Say not that I err, because here, at his funeral, seek- 
ing to do him honor, I exhibit him bravely standing 
front to front with executive power, wielded by a Presi- 
dent who was instigated by Jefferson Davis, and then 
again bravely standing front to front with executive 
power, wielded by the gentle hand of Abraham Lincoln. 
In the first case it was to save an outraged people; in 
the other case it w^as to vindicate the powers of the 
people of the United States in Congress assembled to 
provide guarantees and safeguards against that wicked- 
ness and perjury which had deluged his beloved country 



witli blood. Say not that I err, because now, at liis 
funeral, anxious that his best actions should not be for- 
gotten, I commemorate this championship. He is dead, 
but the good he has done cannot die. And hereafter 
faithful senators, struggling with executive power, will 
catch a new inspiration from his example. A bishop 
of the church tells us that "all is not lost while there is 
a man left to reprove error and bear testimony to the 
truth; and the man who does it with becoming spirit 
may stop a prince or senate in full career, and recover 
the day." Where this spirit has Ijeen shown — where 
an honored associate has earned this title to fame — 
I insist that it shall be made known. The bat- 
tles of regiments are inscribed on their colors. I 
now inscribe on the colors of Jacob Collamer the 
civic batj;les which he fought. ^ Swords of honor are 
placed on the coffins of lamented generals. I now place 
on the coffin of a lamented senator the simple trutliful 
record of his acts. 



Address of Mr. Poland, of Vermont. 

Mr. Peesident: I had intended not to occujiy the 
attention of the Senate by any obseiTations of my own 
upon this occasion. My distinguished colleague, mIio 
was for so many years associated in public life with 
Judge Collamer, not only in this, but also in the other 
house of Congress, was so eminently fitted, both in 
thoughts and words, to do justice to his fame and mem- 



oiy, and to express tlie deej) regret and grief of the 
people of our State at his loss, that I did not feel at 
liberty to weaken what he might say by any feeble 
utterance of my own. The knowledge, too, that other 
distinguished members of this body, long associated 
with Judge Collamer, not only as senators, but in 
other high departments of the public service, would 
address the Senate upon the announcement of his 
decease, was an additional circumstance urging me to 
silence. But more mature consideration has brought 
me, within a very few hours, to a different detennina- 
tion, and to the belief that in justice to m3'self, as the 
successor of Judge Collamer to a seat in this branch 
of Congress, and to the people of the State which so 
highly trusted and honored him, my own feeble voice 
ought to be added to the general mourning over his 
lamented decease. « 

My colleague and other senators who have addressed 
us at the present time have far better knowledge of 
the career of my lamented predecessor, as a statesman 
and a member of the general government, than myself, 
for they were associated with him, and witnessed his 
daily labors in those great departments; while my 
knowledge was merely that of the people at large, 
derived from the published proceedings and debates, 
and the current history of public affairs. This reason 
alone is ample why I should not trespass upon a theme 
already so sufficiently and eloquently presented. 

But the greatness and usefulness of my predecessor 
consisted not alone in his distinguished services to his 
State and nation in the two houses of Congj'ess, and I 



54 • OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

as a Cabinet minister. He was eminently distinguished 
as a lawyer and a judge; and in these respects I doubt- 
less knew him better than any other member of this 
body except my colleague; and the few words I desire 
to say will relate mainly to his professional and judicial 
character and reputation. Professional reputation and 
fame, however well earned and deserved, (except at a 
few fiivorite points, and in the national tribunals,) are 
always local in their character, and extend little, if any, 
beyond the sphere of actual administration; hardly 
ever outside the lines of a State. 

And the same is true of judicial reputation, earned 
upon the bench of the State courts, unless the judicial 
career of the recipient extends over an unusual period 
of time. The reason for this is sufficiently apparent 
from the fact that the professional and judicial labors 
of lawyers and j.udges are generally bestowed upon 
matters of mere private concern and individual interest, 
and, however important and useful to the parties them- 
selves, excite but little interest in the public mind. 
Much the larger part of Judge Collamer's professional 
life had passed before I knew him personally, for he 
had been already three years upon the bench of our 
supreme court when I came to the bar in 1836. From 
that time until his retirement from the bench in 1842 
I was a practitioner before the court of which he was 
a member. During the short period that elapsed be- 
tween his retirement from the lower house of Congress 
and his return to the bench in 1850, he resumed the 
practice of his profession; and during that time I was 
a member of the supreme court of the State. Under 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 55 

the new organization of the judiciary of the State in 
1850, Judge CoLLAMER was made judge of the second 
judicial circuit, and held that office until his election to 
the Senate in 1854. During this period I held the 
same office for the fourth judicial circuit, and it was 
during this time only that I was ever brought into very 
intimate personal relations with him. 

I learn from members of the profession, who were 
contemporary with Judge Collamer in the earlier por- 
tion of his professional career, that his excellent natural 
abilities, together with his thorough and accurate 
knowledge of the law, obtained by close application 
and study; his diligence and faithfulness in attending 
to the interests of his clients, and especially his un- 
swerving honesty and integrity, soon brought to him 
large professional employment, and that his sphere of 
practice and reputation steadily enlarged up to the time 
he left the bar for the bench. He was ever exact and 
thorough in his preparation, to the smallest details, and 
in the conduct of trials was always watchful that no 
proper presentation or argument beneficial to his client 
should be omitted. Nor did he ever fail to see and to 
avail himself of all proper advantage given him, either 
by the weakness of his adversary's cause or by any lack 
of professional skill shown in its support. But his 
practice of the law was honorable and manly; he never 
sought advantage for his client's cause by the use of 
craft and cunning, so often resorted to by less scrupu- 
lous members of the profession. But it was more in 
his character as an advocate that his peculiar and char- 
acteristic fairness was exhibited. He always presented 

m i 



every legitimate argument in favor of his cause forcibly 
and effectively. 

But lie never resorted to subtle and ingenious sophis- 
tries to disguise and conceal a dishonest cause or to en- 
trap and bewilder the triers. His style and manner 
as an advocate, especially befora juries, was peculiarly 
his own. His presentation of a cause to a jury was as 
cool, deliberate, and dispassionate as his argument of 
a dry question of law before 'the court, or a question of 
puljlic affairs in the Senate. He never appealed to the 
passions or prejudices of his auditors, whoever they 
w^ere, but sought always to move and convince their 
judgments. He abhorred and detested every form of 
deceit and fldsehood in others, and disdained the use 
of it himself 

Such an advocate was of course ever listened to 
with the highest respect, and his arguments received 
all that consideration to which his ability and candor so 
well entitled them. 

Judge CoLLAMEE came to the bench a ripe, 
thoroughly trained lawyer. His popularity as a judge 
was all that could have been expected from a man of 
his talents and attainments. He was especially fortu- 
nate and gifted as a presiding judge at jury trials. 
His ready and accurate knowledge of the law, his keen 
and quick apprehension, his extensive acquaintance 
with men, and the motives and incentives to human 
conduct, and especially his strong and intuitive love of 
justice, enabled him at once to master a case, and de- 
tect the true from the false, and, without apparent 
effort, to make the truth of the case manifest to others. 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 57 

His manner and deportment upon the bench were al- 
ways kind and considerate; he Ustened patiently to 
even slow and plodding counsellors endeavoring to ex- 
plain and illustrate what he already saw clearly. 

He was ever prompt, fearless, and inflexible in his 
decisions, with nothing of timidity or favoritism, always 
so painful when exhibited on the bench. It is saying 
no more than the truth, that he was one of the most 
efficient and satisfactory nisi prius judges who have 
ever sat upon the bench. 

His published opinions while a judge of the supreme 
■ court are models of judicial composition. For ac- 
curacy of learning, terseness of statement, clearness 
and comprehensiveness of style, I do not know where 
they are excelled. 

Had Judge Collamer remained upon the bench to 
the end of his life, like Chief Justice Shaw, of Mas- 
sachusetts, or Chief Justice Gibson, of Pennsylvania, 
I have no doubt his judicial fame would have equalled 
that of those eminent jurists. 

I have no need to speak of the character of Judge 
Collamer in his more private and personal relations, 
or his rare and generous qualities and gifts as a social 
companion. All who were ever associated with him in 
any capacity will ever retain a loving remembrance of 
his kind and genial nature, his keen and pleasant wit, 
his love and fund of anecdote. His duties as a hus- 
band and father, as a citizen and Christian, were ever 
faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled. 

In brief, sir, I have never known any man who came 
nearer attaining the full measure of what I believe to 



'© 



58 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

have been the great object of my predecessor m the 
performance of all the duties of life, from the hmnblest 
to the highest, to be a just man before God and his 
fellow-men. 

The people of his and my State have ever held him 
in the highest respect; they mourn his loss in common 
with the whole nation, and they will ever cherish in 
their hearts the memory of his wisdom and his virtues. 

Fortunate may each of us consider himself, if, at the 
end of the journey of life, he be able to leave behind 
him a reputation so full of usefulness and a character 
so pure and unsullied. 



The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the 
Senate adjourned. 



m 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
Thursday, December 14, 1865. 



A message from the Senate, by Mr. Forney, its 
Secretary, communicated resolutions adopted by the 
Senate relative to the decease of Hon. Jacob Colla- 
MER, late a senator from the State of Vermont. 

On motion of Mr. Morrill, the resolutions were 
taken from the table and read, as follows: 

Resolved, unanimously. That the Senate has received with the 
deepest sensibility the announcement of the death of Hon. Jacob 
CoLLAMER, late a senator of the United States from the State of 
Vermont. 

Resolved, unanimously, That the members of the Senate, from a 
sincere desire of showing every mark of respect due to the memory 
of Hon. Jacob Collamer, will go into mourning by wearing crape 
on the left arm for thirty days. 

Resolved, unanimously, That, as a further mark of respect for 
the memory of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 

Address of Mr. Morrill, of Vermont 

Mr. Speaker: The resolutions just received from 
the Senate announce, what recurs with painful regu- 
larity, that death has again thinned our numbers, and 
that we, members of Congress, sooner, perhaps, than 
others in different walks of life, are doomed to an early 
dismissal from among the living. In this instance, it is 
true that our deceased friend, the late senator from 



m 



Vermont, had reached fulbiess of years and of honors; 
but his constitution had been so admirably preserved, 
that those of us who had recently associated with him 
were glad to believe he had yet many years in store of 
useful and lustrous service. His sudden departure 
surprised the country and his colleagues as much as 
his own family, and he will be as sincerely lamented 
by the public as by his friends and relatives. It was 
my happiness to have been admitted to his intimacy; 
and I shall speak of him in terms of affection, my feel- 
ings not allowing me to do less, but at the same time, 
as he would himself have most desired, with entire 
justice. 

Hon. Jacob Collamer would have been seventy-five 
years old had he Hved until the 8th of January next, 
having been born at Troy, New York, January 8, 1791. 
With his flither, a soldier of the Ee volution, he moved 
to Burlington, Vermont, where he received his educa- 
tion, and graduated at the Vermont University in the 
class of 1810. After being admitted to the bar in 
1813, he made a brief campaign in the last war with 
England, as a lieutenant of artillery in the detached 
militia of the United States service; and there was no 
portion of his history to which he referred with more 
pride. Having settled in Eoyalton, he represented the 
town, while successfully pursuing his profession, in the 
State legislature in 1821, 1822, 1827, and 1828; was 
member of the State constitutional convention in 1836, 
and was made associate justice of the supreme court of 
Vermont in 1833. He was continued on the bench 
until 1842, when he was elected a member of the 



House of Representatives in the Congress of the 
United States. Re elected in 1844 and 1846, he was, 
at the expiration of his service in this house, immedi- 
ately called to the Cabinet of President Taylor. Upon 
the death of the President, he resigned his place in 
1850. The same year he was again placed as judge in 
the supreme court of Vermont, and so remained until 
1854, when he was elected a senator of the United 
States for six years from 1855. At the expiration of 
the term he was re-elected. At his first entrance 
upon his duties in the Senate he was placed upon the 
Committee on Territories, of which Judge Douglas 
was chairman, and made the celebrated reply of the 
minority (March 12, 1856,) to the report of that dis- 
tinguished gentleman on the Territories of Nebraska 
and Kansas. The compact statement of facts, the 
logical deductions therefrom, and the powerful con- 
densation of the summing up at the conclusion, at once 
established his reputation in that body of which he 
became so marked a member. At the close of his 
career he held the position of chairman of the Com- 
mittee on the Post Office and Post Roads, chairman of 
the Joint Committee on the Library, and was also a 
member of the Committee on the Judiciary. He re- 
ceived the honorary degree of LL.D. from the Vermont 
University in 1849, and from Dartmouth College in 
1857. SuiFering from a sharp attack of congestion of 
the lungs, induced by a cold caught while returning 
from the funeral of a brother, Senator Collamee died, 
from an organic disease of the heart, on the evening of 
Thursday, November 9, last, at his residence, in Wood- 



'P 



stock, attended by the love and watchful solicitude of a 
devoted family, w^liere the pastor of his church, on the 
following Sabbath, performed impressive funeral ser- 
vices, without pomp or show, and where the people of 
the town and the bereaved family, as the sun was 
slowly sinking in the west, followed him with tears 
and sorrow to his quiet tomb. 

His constant elevation produced no change in the 
modesty of his demeanor, and there was no station, in 
this long recital of his public employments, which he 
did not fitly fill and adorn. 

At the start in life, young Collamer was a Jeffer- 
sonian republican. Later, when parties assumed other 
names, he was a whig, and always distinguished for 
the thoroughness with which he examined all ques- 
tions, for his moderation, for the courtesy with which 
he ever treated political opponents, and for his scorn, 
which he took no pains to conceal, of demagogues. 
Though stoutly maintaining his own predilections, he 
reviled with cruel words neither parties nor persons; 
and now, that his course is run, he is at peace with all 
the world. 

As a judge, he was distinguished for swiftness in the 
despatch of business, for ability and stern impartiality, 
and for the perspicacity of his opinions, as orally de- 
livered or as recorded in reports. While in office, 
though habitually urbane, he never forgot the gravity 
and dignity of his judicial position, which sometimes 
gave the impression of hauteur not actually felt. He 
was a good disciplinarian, and, therefore, occasionally 
curt, as when the time of the court was unnecessarily 



W 



consumed by illogical or irrelevant speeches; and the 
unfortunate members of the bar, or partial observers, 
may have thought he was sour and cold, when he was 
really, to those who knew him, a man of excellent 
humor, and as appreciative of merit as of demerit. 
While he had a full grasp and comprehension of the' 
principles of law, his memory never failed to supply 
instances in which those principles had been illustrated 
and applied. Under his administration, jurors had little 
difficulty in the solution of nice questions of law and 
fact, however intimately blended: and the authority of 
jurors under his guidance and teachings suffered no 
depreciation, but their functions and capacity appeared 
to be vindicated upon every trial. In a State which 
has not been deficient in eminent jurists, including such 
men as Chipman, Chase, Van Ness, Phelps, Prentiss, and 
Williams, in the past, not to say anything of the living, 
the name of Collamer is, and will be, ranked as a 
worthy peer. He was an upright judge. 

It will be remembered that the cabinet of General 
Taylor, in its high order of character and ability, has 
rarely if ever, been surpassed in the history of our 
country, and it was, in fact, what cabinets were designed 
to be, the wise council of the President. Among such 
distinguished associates it is fair to say the late senator 
was not dwarfed by contrast with any. In the dis- 
charge of the practical duties of his department he is 
still remembered by official veterans yet lingering there 
for his untiring devotion and intelligent application to 
that business of the government which comes to the 
knowledge and touches the daily accommodations of 



m 



more persons than that of any or all other of the execu- 
tive departments. By his report it appears that the 
excess of the revenues of the General Post Office over 
the expenditures in 1849 was S400,000, but soon after 
it ceased to be even self-sustaining,, presenting annual 
•deficits until the present year. While Postmaster Gen- 
eral he organized a division in his department to attend 
to all foreign mails, foreign postal arrangements, and 
ocean steamship lines. The existing postal treaty with 
Great Britain, at his entrance, just agreed upon, was 
carried out by him, and all Ihe details for that purpose 
perfected. The various subsequent international postal 
arrangements show the wisdom of such treaties, and 
they are still executed in the department according to 
the original plan. The administration of the office 
while in the hands of Mr. Collamer met with no com- 
plaint, which is the highest compliment this extended 
and ever-extending department can achieve. 

While in the Senate he commanded the confidence 
of all its members, and the measures he introduced 
were not only easily carried in the committees of which 
he was chairma:"., but when they were brought into the 
Senate nearly always passed without even a division. 
He participated in all the important debates, bringing 
those acceptable offerings which aid in the solution of 
subjects under discussion; and, without making any 
dazzling display, or aspiring to any domination, justly 
wielded a large influence over his fellow-members. If 
he was not their Mentor, there was no other senator 
whose counsel upon all subjects was more frequently 
sought, or more generously a[)preciated. 



m* 



Nature had dealt liberally with him, having given to 
him a fine figure as well as a full and well-poised mind; 
and -in his youth the graces of his person bespoke favor. 
In his age he not only spoke Hke a senator, but with 
the mastery of a piercing eye, that "spoke audience ere 
the tongue," looked like one, and, as such, his words 
were accepted as wise among wise men. In his con- 
versation he led, when he led at all, with useful topics 
for discussion, and then pursued them with unflagging 
animation, not monopolizing all the time, but ever and 
anon showing himself an engaged and gentle hstener, 
as ready to be pleased with the wit of others as with 
his own. An hour with him produced no impression 
of a sermon or a comedy, but his sense and humor 
were so commingled that those who enjoyed such in- 
tercourse felt that neither the one nor the other could 
have been more dignified and useful, nor more pleasant 
and exhilarating. To all his natural advantages, to 
all his varied experience, he added patient industry 
and force of character. He decided nothing by in- 
tuition — not looking for Jupiter to come to his aid 
from the clouds — but, helping himself, he always dili- 
gently studied subjects as they came up in all their 
parts and relations; so that his opinions, whether in 
the social circle, on the bench, or in the Senate, far 
from being crude or extravagant, were the fruit of wise 
reflection, and no man reasoned more independently, 
or was less afraid to stand alone. 

Senator Collamer was not a wide and desultory 
reader, though well versed in history and standard lit- 
erature — including many quaint and rare old books — 



66 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

bat he was a very diligent and conscientious student 
of the books he loved, retaining forever any mastery he 
had once acquired over them, and among them none 
were more thoroughly read and inwardly digested than 
the Bible. A model in the regularity of his habits, 
modest and republican in his style of living — in his 
tastes as well as principles — he maintained a character 
of spotless purity in all the relations of life, public and 
private, and his own home was made happy by his 
presence. His piety was unaifected, and he was a 
regular attendant, wherever he dwelt, upon divine wor- 
ship. He was liberal and public-spirited in proportion 
to his means, though an economical manager of his own 
affairs as he was of those of his country. In his o\\'n 
State at the time of his decease he was regarded as 
her foremost man, and his loss will be mourned by the 
nation as the loss of one of its great men. 

I believe he desired to be regarded as a Christian 
statesman, and any terms added to these he would have 
considered as terms of diminution. He preferred to be 
quietly right rather than to be conspicuous and wrong. 
He sought to convince, not to be eloquent. He was 
impressive rather than impulsive. He appealed to the 
reason of men, and did not aim to excite their temper. 
He tried to make his audience understand the weight 
of the argument, not to please them with the beatitudes 
of rhetoric, The truths to which he gave utterance 
were calculated, in their naked simplicity, sometimes 
in their puritanic, gritty homeliness of phrase, to stand 
the tests of all time; but he took no care to embalm 
his works with the ornaments of the schools or the 



spoils of literature, in order to win that fame which 
style often secures even to shallow thinkers. It was 
breadth of view, and not felicity of diction, he aimed 
at. He borrowed little from others. His intellectual 
structures were built of timber he had freshly cut and 
hewn on his own domains, redolent of the perfume of 
the forest, and were not piled up from dead drift-wood, 
quotations which float on the surface of learning, so 
tempting to merely literary wreckers. Though always 
bravely in earnest, and self-conscious of his power, he 
had no hot blood, teeming with a luxuriant progeny of 
hyperbole and fancy, but his unembellished words al- 
ways kept on a level with his argument — clear, cogent, 
and inspiring the hearer wdth the idea that the speaker 
was wiser, freighted with more thought upon the sub- 
ject, than himself Knowing that the human mind 
wearies with long-continued attention, he was accus- 
tomed to enliven his speech with an occasional apposite 
anecdote, of which he possessed a wonderful opulence, 
but they were always chaste, and never delayed the ar- 
gument. They were single flashes of wit, which shed 
light over the subject in hand, while the speaker and 
hearer were a long way further on in their journey. 
Though it was obvious that he had a keen relish for 
wit, he more worshipped the light which shines forever 
than the momentary billiancy of the meteor, and was 
more truly great in the irresistible logic with which he 
was wont to intrench himself and bid defiance to op- 
ponents. 

He scrutinized novelties, and was slow to exchange 
a present inheritance for future prospects. But, if he 



®' 



was not an innovator, he was ready to sustain and de- 
fend any well-considered and substantial improvement. 
Conservative from natural temperament, as well as age 
and experience, he yet never was unwilling to strike at 
any tangible evil or governmental abuse. 

The Constitution of his country he had read with 
profound attention, and, upliolding it in all its parts? 
mainly in accordance with the school of Madison, he 
strove to be the guardian of the natural rights of the 
people, as well as the just authority of the government. 
He loved liberty and revered law. Loving his own 
State dearly, and watchful of all her rights, he never 
hesitated to subordinate her sovereignty to that of the 
nation. His merits in the Senate as a constitutional 
lawyer of ample learning and uncommon sagacity 
were cheerfully acknowledged there, and his fame, if it 
did not leap over, extended as wide as the boundaries 
of our country. 

Though his views were usually in harmony with 
those of the people of his own State, the transcendent 
regard they had for him and his exalted character per- 
mitted him to differ with them upon some questions, as 
they felt, whatever differences there might be, that they 
were the result of patriotic and independent opinions of 
a full-grown man. 

He abhorred war considered as a trade or profession, 
was jealous of the supersedure of laws by military 
rule, and had serious forebodings as to its influence on 
public morals; but he had large faith in the American 
people, in their intelligence and traditions; and, in re- 
sponding to the wager of battle by a wicked and 



i- 



rebellious people, he was for the energetic and full ex- 
ercise of the military power of the country. Chary of 
legislative weapons, he had no doubt at all of the effi- 
ciency of martial resources. 

In the Senate others may have excelled' him in 
learning, in genius, in sarcasm, in oratory, but no one 
surpassed him in stores of knowledge, in admirable 
clearness of statement, in lofty purpose, in direct and 
vigorous argument, nor in that combination of sound 
opinions which make the intelligent statesman. 

Such a life — with no words his friends could wish 
to blot, with no acts that do not contribute to his 
praise, closing with his country's plaudit, "AVell done, 
thou good and faithful servant," triumphantly closing 
with the Christian's hope in the resurrection — appeals 
to us by the force of its illustrious example, that we 
may so make up our final record that those who sur- 
vive us may be able to say, as we do now, "Behold, 
with no remembered sins of youth, here are the 
splendors of an age, a long age of good works." 

I offer the following resolutions: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives of the United 
States has received with the deepest sensibihty the intelligence of 
the death of Jacob Collamer, late a senator in Congress from the 
State of Vermont. 

Resolved, That the members and officers of this house, as a 
proper mark of respect for the personal character and long and 
faithful services of Hon. Jacob Collamer, will go into mourning 
by wearing crape upon the left arm for the period of thirty days. 

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect for the deceased, this 
house do now adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Woodbridge, of Vennont. 

Mr. Speaker: After the remarks of my distinguished 
colleague, who has so justly analyzed the character of 
the late Judge Collamer, it will not be appropriate for 
me to detain the House longer than to pay a tribute of 
love to the memory of my departed friend. 

Judge Collamer ^^'as for many years a leading law- 
yer of Vermont. He looked upon law as the perfection 
of human reason, and studied it as the highest and most 
perfect science. Hence he spurned the garbage of the 
outer courts. He never touched the offals of the sacri- 
fice, but worshipped at the inner shrine of the temple, 
whose architectural proportions are just; whose parts 
are orderly and harmonious; where justice is found 
married to law, and controversy guided by the spirit of 
truth, rather than the spirit of victory. By well-directed 
study he became one of the finest juridical scholars of 
the age, and when called from the bar to the bench 
sustained an equal rank with the scholarly and accom- 
plished Prentiss, the metaphysical Williams, and the 
distinguished Phelps, whoge legal powers were as 
measureless as those of Daniel AVebster. 

As a judge, Mr. Collamer was without fear and 
without reproach ; and his opinions are models for their 
elegance and simplicity of diction, their unerring logic, 
and their freedom from any of that party bias which 
sometimes soils the ermine of the bench. 

His career as a senator is known to the whole 
country. In the most distinguished body of the nation 



he had no rival in spotless integrity and purity of char- 
acter, and no superior in debate. It has never been 
my fortune to know a man who could state a proposition 
more clearly, and enforce it with more unerring and 
unanswerable logic, than Judge Collamer; and when 
he made an argument every senator knew that he 
spoke the honest convictions of his own enlightened 
judgment. In the great struggle through which we 
have passed he calmly waited the logic of events, or, 
more properly speaking, the indications of God, and 
then fearlessly urged the policy which he deemed to 
be right. 

As a lawyer, as a judge, as a representative in Con- 
gress, as Postmaster General, as senator, he was always 
unswerved by private or party interests, and preserved 
a reputation as spotless as a child. 

The crowning glory of Jacob Collamee's character 
was, after all, best exhibited at home. You all recollect 
the sweetness of his face. He seemed, as Sydney 
Smith said of Horner, to have the ten commandments 
written there. He was a devoted husband and father, 
a kind and generous neighbor, and in the highest sense 
of the word a Christian gentleman. 

And now that he has gone, across the silent gulf which 
separates the living from the dead, the pleadings of his 
life are heard. It is for us to reverently listen. Let 
us imitate his virtues, so that when we are called to 
join our fathers it may be said of us, as it can be safely 
said of our lamented friend, the world is better that he 
has lived. 



@- 



Address of Mr. Raymond, of NeAv York. 

Mr. Speaker; I regret to say, sir, that I am entirely 
unprepared to commemorate in any fitting terms the 
character and services of the eminent senator whose de- 
cease has been announced. Indeed, after what has been 
so well and so fully said of his life and public services, 
by those from his own State who knew him so thoroughly 
and who loved him so well, I feel that any extended re- 
marks from me would be simply beside the proprieties 
of the occasion. But I trust the House will bear with 
me while, in a few words, I comply with the request of 
those of his own State upon this floor, that I would at 
least express my own sympathy with them in their loss, 
and my concurrence in their estimate of his character. 

It was my good fortune to know the late Senator 
CoLLAMER for many years last past. It was one of the 
most pleasing incidents of the annual festival of our 
university commencement, to those of us who were then 
in college, that he was to be present, as he was always 
present, when commencement day came round, to re- 
hearse to us the history of the troubles through which 
he had to pass to achieve the education to which he 
attributed his success in life, and to give to us, as no 
one could do so well, those counsels and suggestions of 
which we all stood so much in need. I learned then 
to admire his character and to love him for his kind con- 
sideration toward us, so much his juniors, so ready, so 
eager always to profit by his example and his counsels. 
It was not my fortune in after life to know him inti- 

i, m 



mately. I used to see him only as we see each other 
in the casual meetings of public life; but the more I 
saw him the more I honored him, the more profoundly 
I respected the great gifts he brought to the public ser- 
vice, and the high moral considerations by which his 
public actions were always guided. 

His mind was clear, acute, and strong. He never 
failed to discriminate accurately between all the views 
of every subject he discussed. His logic was clear and 
strong. There was nothing in his discharge of public 
duty that ever was low or narrow. He always rose to 
the level of every subject, and he did it without an effort, 
for the highest subjects were only on the level upon 
which his mind constantly moved. He was entirely 
free from the small ambitions and smaller jealousies 
that too often encroach upon the large generosities that 
alone give dignity to the details of public life. In 
everything that he did he consulted the dictates of his 
conscience. He acted in public, as in private, with a 
view to what he believed to be justice and truth, and 
the highest good of those in whose behalf he spoke or 
acted. 

Senator Collamer was not much given to theorizing 
on public affairs. I think, if I have not mistaken the 
tendency, drift, and principle of his public action, that he 
looked upon government and the offices of government 
as experimental in their nature; and the question which 
guided his conduct was not, what ought to be done on 
the highest theory we can frame — "What would I do if 
I could have my own way in everything?" but, "What 
is the best thing, on the whole, which, under the present 



®s 



circumstances, it is competent for us to accomplish?" 
He was, therefore, as far removed as possible from that 
class of public men whom the French are accustomed 
to designate doctrinaires. He was a practical, direct, 
straightforward statesman, in the largest and best sense 
of that great and noble word. 

I think Senator Collamer, moreover, shared largely, 
perhaps was to a certain extent the cause of, that mod- 
eration, that steady conservatism in tone and temper, 
which has always characterized the noble State from 
which he came. It has always seemed to me that 
Vermont, more thoroughly and more truly even than 
any other State of the Union, presents a perfect model 
of a republican commonwealth. I know of no State 
certainly where I believe the great principles of social 
equality obtain a more thorough foothold than in that 
Green Mountain State. I know of none in which the 
personal and civil rights of every human being obtain 
a more prompt, a more thorough, a more cordial re- 
cognition. 

And I should state, equally to the honor of that 
noble State, that she is always steady in her judgment 
of public affairs; and Senator Collamer shared her 
steadiness of judgment and action. Never carried 
away by the mere caprices or gusts of the public tem- 
j 'per, he was still always profoundly respectful and 
deferential to that settled and permanent tendency and 
conviction of the public mind which, perhaps, is the 
surest test of political truth and expediency to which 
any person in public or private life can possibly refer. 

Vermont, Mr. Speaker, has been fortunate in the 



-®) 



character of her pubhc men, from a time beyond which 
my memory does not reach in her history. She has 
always had in her pubUc councils men who conferred 
lustre upon her and gathered honor to themselves, by 
the manner in which they met every duty which de- 
volved upon them. Some of their names, in various 
departments of the public service, have been cited by 
the honorable gentlemen whose words preceded mine. 
They are names that will live in history. They are 
names that reflect honor upon the professions with 
which they were connected. Vermont still has in the 
public service — in both houses of this Congress, in the 
diplomatic service of the country, in the press, and 
everywhere else where public action can promote the 
public good — men whose names will be remembered 
for the good they have done the world. 

But among them all she has no name — and it would 
be the highest wish I could frame for her, that in some 
future day she might have some name — that will oc- 
cupy a higher place in the respect of all who knew him, 
and a more profound position in the love and esteem of 
those who are immediately connected with him, than 
that of Jacob Collamer. 



Address of Mr. GtRIDER, of Kentucky. 

Mr. Speaker: I take pleasure in bearing some tribute 
of respect to the distinguished senator who has lately 
departed from this life. I had the honor at an early 
day, in this hall, to be associated with Jacob Collamer, 
and the honor. of a personal acquaintance with him, 



living witli liim in the same mess. I had opportuni- 
ties at least of becoming acquainted personally with 
his temper, with his qualifications, and with his private 
and individual feelings, as well as with his public con- 
victions, in the position he then occupied, and I felt 
that it was due to Judge Collamer to bear some 
testimony to that high appreciation which we always 
entertained as to his qualifications in every position in 
which the country placed him. 

Judge Collamer was not a man of display. He 
needs no eulogy from any individual upon this floor. 
He has marked his character upon the records of his 
country. Long in public life, he proved himself com- 
petent and true and faithful in every position to which 
he was appointed. But I need not speak of his record. 
It is before the country. It is recognized with delight 
and pleasure, not only in his own neighborhood, but 
well understood and gratefully appreciated in the West. 

Mr. Speaker, you have already heard delineated the 
variety of position which he occupied ; and well may 
his friends appeal to the public records, and to the 
conflicts which have occurred in political life, and ask 
where Judge Collamer has been derelict, and when 
there was ever imputed to him any feeling but one of 
patriotic devotion to his country, and devotion to the 
highest interests of humanity. 

Gentlemen who were familiar with him all know 
that he was not a man of rhetoric and poetry. He was 
a man of logic, of argument, of discrimination, of in- 
tegrity, and of firmness. He studied what he said 
I said what he thought, and executed his purposes with 



regard, not to the approbation of men upon the right 
hand or upon the left, but with regard to that appro- 
; bation which is better and higher than all — the appro- 
: bation of his own conscience, in view of that eternal 
; responsibility that awaits us all beyond the grave. 
; Sir, I loved Jacob Collamer. I have seen him in 
; the social circle. I have seen him in the highest 
\ 'circles of this government. I had the honor to be a 
; messmate of his when Taney and McLean and Story 
; and a host of other distinguished men formed, as it 
, were, a family circle. I heard their interchange of 
i thought and conversation. I had an opportunity to 
j contrast and determine the quality of Judge Colla- 
! mer's mind and his attainments ; and they were prom- 
I inent and distinguished. He was always ready, always 
i quick to discern, to discriminate, to enunciate, to illus- 
1 trate; he was peculiarly favored in the quality of his 
j mind for pointed, clear illustration. 

But, gentlemen, as I have said, his history is upon 
the record. Let me make one remark as to his per- 
sonal qualities. He was gentle and kind and affable to 
all around him — to the humble and poor as well as 
others. Judge Collamer had a hand of congratulation 
to give to every man whom he believed to be an honest 
man; and yet, while he was thus condescending and 
affable, he felt that he himself was a man in attain- 
ments, in consideration, and in importance, equal to 
the highest. 

In the social circle no one was so interesting, so 
illustrative, with such a fund of anecdote and instruc- 
tion, and so full of kindness and gentleness. Not an 
^ . g 



1 



angry word did I ever hear fall from him. But, 
gentlemen, allow me to say that, according to my 
convictions, we ought to estimate his character more 
from other considerations which have not, on my part, 
at least, been mentioned. He was not only a man of 
integrity and morality, but he was a Christian man 
and a Christian gentleman, and in this fact I trust his 
friends, and especially the home circle, may find the 
power of submission and ample sources of consolation. 
A Christian gentleman, as he was, his death, although 
it may be to his country and his lamily a bereavement 
and a loss, to him it was great gain. 

I may be excused for stating a fact, for facts are 
illustrative of character more than words. When I 
had the honor to be in Congress — in the House — with 
Judge CoLLAMER, we had a congressional prayer meet- 
ing. I remember distinctly that Judge Collamer, as 
a Christian gentleman, was uniformly there and par- 
ticipated in the devotional exercises. They were of 
frequent occurrence, and he used to attend, and Judge 
McLean, and a circle of the distinguished men of the 
legislature of that day. I have, therefore, the right 
to hope and to infer, and to cheer the disconsolate 
and the bereaved with the enunciation, that though 
he has left us, and his services are no longer ours, 
or his kind cheer for his family circle, yet to him 
it was but a glorious exchange, and in that exchange 
we may find the highest consolation, not only here in 
this hall, but everywhere throughout the country, and 
more peculiarly in the family circle, where, I hope, his 
wife and his friends may be cheered with the bright 



prospect that they shall, according to Christian prin- 
ciples, meet him again and recognize him as a purified 
angel — no more amidst the conflict and labors of" human 
existence, but pure and holy and blest as the angels 
of God. 



Address of Mr. Alley, of Massachusetts, 

Mr. Speaker: I rise to express my cordial concur- 
rence in the resolutions now under consideration; and 
before the question is put, I wish to add a few words 
to what has already been said in honor of the memory 
of the distinguished senator whose decease has been 
announced. 

To those of us who have listened, as many of us 
have so often, to his words of eloquence and wisdom at 
the other end of the Capitol, nothing which I can say 
can add anything to their appreciation of his great 
attainments, vast resources, practical wisdom, high 
character, and eminent usefulness. But to those who 
did not know him so well it may not be unimportant 
to hear, in addition to the fitting tributes already 
spoken, something more of the characteristics which 
so distinguished the able senator and patriot whose 
death we so deeply mourn, from another whose good 
fortune it was to know him somewhat intimately. It 
happened to me upon my first entrance into Congress 
to be placed upon a committee of this house, upon 
which I have served several years since, corresponding 
in name and duties with one in the other branch of 



m 



Congress, of which Judge Collamer was the head. 
It gave me a most excellent opportunity, as well as 
great pleasure, to witness, sometimes in counsel with 
others, but more frequently in private consultation, his 
excellent sense, sound judgment, practical wisdom, and 
incorruptible integrity. Few men comprehended so 
easily — in fact, I have scarcely met one that could 
elucidate so clearly and fully, the most abstruse and 
difficult propositions. His simple and clear statement 
of any subject was in itself almost a demonstration. 
The clearness of his perceptions was, indeed, truly 
remarkable. Without ostentation or display, he com- 
municated his stores of knowledge and wisdom most 
cheerfully to willing and grateful listeners. 

I have heard some of his associates in the Senate 
and scores of others remark that he was the wisest 
man in that august body. And all who knew him will 
agree that he was, at least, among the very best and 
greatest of those eminent men: and who could desire 
for his fame higher praise than this? But it was not 
as a senator merely, or the wisdom which he displayed 
as a legislator, which constituted his only or chief claim 
to high distinction. He had the reputation, as has 
already been stated, of being a great lawyer in no 
ordinary sense; for he was not only learned in the 
principles and technicalities of the law, but it is ad- 
mitted that he understood and comprehended the true 
spirit of the law better and in greater degree than 
many of the most distinguished lawyers of the land. 
To say that one is a great lawyer in the highest sense, 
as was justly said of him, is to say that he was a great 



<m 



man. I know that it is not iinfrequent, upon such an 
occasion as this, for partial friends to indulge in exag- 
gerated praise and high-wrought eulogium; but it is 
but simple justice to say of the late senator from Ver- 
mont that he was wise, pure, and patriotic in as emi- 
nent degree as any of the public men now upon the 
stage of action. And to a nice sense of justice he 
added a mature judgment in the consideration of all 
subjects, formed upon careful examination and reflec- 
tion. He was amiable in temper, and that, together 
with an originating mind, stored so full as it was by 
study and culture, made him a great favorite of all 
with whom he came in contact. He attained great 
influence, not by frequent and much speaking, but by 
solid reasoning and dispassionate argument. He never 
relied upon anything for success but legitimate and 
argumentative appeals to the understanding alone. 

Such was Jacob Collamer: the wise senator, the 
able statesman, the great lawyer. But he is gone, and 
we shall never behold Mm again on earth. How mel- 
ancholy the reflection, that one so learned, so able, and 
so useful, and withal so beloved, should be thus removed 
from this great field of usefulness and honor, to be seen 
no more forever ! Such lessons teach us how little of 
lasting enjoyment is to be found in struggles and toils 
for honor and fame, except the purpose of such efforts 
is to secure noble ends. Ambition for place and power, 
when inspired by a desire to accomplish the greatest 
good to mankind, is not unworthy the highest aspira- 
tions of the great and good. But hov/ suggestive the 
thought and the truth that — 



" When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, 
Though loud the sound, the echo sleeps at last ; 
And glory, like the phcenix midst the fires, 
Exhales her odors, blazes, and expires." 

The frequent recurrence of such scenes as these 
admonishes us^how slight is our grasp upon life, and that 
we, too, must soon be called from the labors and strug- 
gles of earth to render an account of our stewardship 
while here ; and well shall it be with us if we shall be 
able to present as good a record, "when time with us 
shall be no more," for faithfulness and duty well per- 
formed, as fell to the lot of our departed friend. 



Address of Mr. Wentworth, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker: I am unwilling that the West should be 
unheard on this occasion; and I have no other apology 
to offer for my remarks now except that I regret that 
some abler man from the West had not deemed that 
the privilege devolved upon him. 

I entered Congress at the same time with Judge 
CoLLAMER in 1843, and I had not long been associaetd 
with him before I marked him as a man of signal 
ability, and destined to take that high rank which has 
been so unanimously accorded him. I concur in all 
the noble traits of character which the gentlemen who 
have so eloquently preceded me have enlarged upon. 
But there are some points which they have overlooked 
that I deem too prominent to be omitted and do justice 
to so great a man. He distinguished himself for his 



@. 



HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 83 

kindness and fatherly care of the new States. While 
he scrupulously canvassed all our measures and op- 
posed those which he deemed extravagant, yet he may 
have been considered a very liberal man to us, and I 
could mention many works of western improvement 
that stand out as monuments of his justice and fore- 
sight. 

Judge CoLLAMER was an economical man, and care- 
fully investigated every claim that was brought before 
Congress, and those of his fellow-members who had not 
examined them never had any fears in following him 
if he only assured them that he had carefully examined 
the matter. He looked as I do upon economy, as one 
of the best safeguards of our government, and as one 
of the essential requisites of a statesman. He thought 
that no man should be more liberal of the public 
money than he was of his own. He viewed economy 
in public affairs as nothing more nor less than strict 
honesty. The same sterling economy which character- 
ized him in the legislative department he practiced in 
the executive department. As Postmaster General he 
tolerated no extravagance; and when I have said this, I 
need not say his department was tainted with no cor- 
ruption. And if the history of the Post Office Depart- 
ment is ever written, his administration will be noted 
as economical, cheap, and honest, and he will stand 
equal to, if not ahead, in this respect, of the purest men 
who have ever adorned the national Post Office. 

As to his ability I have only to quote my own case 
to show what effect he was capable of producing upon 
minds that were even prejudiced against his views. I 



m 



was here daring the last inauguration ceremonies, and 
when I came here I had not the views that 'I now have 
with reference to the reconstruction of the States. I 
had a conversation with one of the ablest men in this 
country upon that subject, and, I might add, with a gen- 
tleman now occupying what I consider the highest posi- 
tion in this republic. His views and mine at parti^ig did 
not exactly coincide. His last words were, "I would like 
to have you read the late speech of Senator Collamer, 
if you have not done so." As I had not, he took particu- 
lar pains to send to his own library, and got for me the 
only copy he had, which he prized very highly, and 
trusted to his good fortune to get another. To that 
speech I owe the convictions which have dictated the 
votes which I have cast upon this floor. That speech 
convinced me, and I know no other way for a public 
man to vote than in accordance with his convictions, 
leaving the consequences, not to the dictation of selfish 
organizers of political parties, but to that Creator to 
whom a man is as much responsible for his official as 
for his private acts. 

The gentleman from New York (Mr. Raymond) has 
told us that Judge Collamer was conservative. Until 
those words I had not made up my mind to address 
the House on this occasion. I deemed it my duty 
then to define JudiJ:e Collamer's conservatism. He 
was for preserving his government, and he was for de- 
stroying everything that stood in the way of com- 
mending that government to the protection and 
blessinti: of Divine Providence. He was a conservative 
of the right and a radical destructive of the wrong. 



The gentleman from New York might have said of him, 
that he was a radical conservative. He knew no ex- 
pediency, he knew no policy, as against the equality of 
all mankind before the law ; and that is the sense in 
which an immense majority of this house can be called 
conservatives. 

The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Grider) spoke of 
Mr. CoLLAMER as a conscientiously religious man, and 
he might have added that his religion was of that kind 
which made him believe, and carry into actual practice 
the belief, that men should be as equal before the bar 
of their country as they were before the bar of God. 
Judge CoLLAMER met the black man on earth as he 
knew he would meet him in heaven. 



The resolutions of Mr. Morrill were then adopted. 



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